


A Crack in the Slab

by katrinajg



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Enemies to fuck buddies to grudging acquaintances, F/M, Femdom, Hand Jobs, Infidelity, Not Canon Compliant, Praise Kink, Slow Burn, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinajg/pseuds/katrinajg
Summary: They discussed a plan for getting back to Jindosh’s mansion briefly before they left. Or rather Emily wanted a plan, and Jindosh waved her off with, “I’m Grand Inventor, that’s the plan. Oh, don’t fret so much, Kaldwin, it’ll give you wrinkles,” and how shehatesthis man.
Relationships: Kirin Jindosh/Emily Kaldwin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	A Crack in the Slab

**Author's Note:**

> _No more; and by a sleep to say we end_  
>  _The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks_  
>  _That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation_  
>  _Devoutly to be wish'd._
> 
> _-Hamlet_  
> 

The world is suddenly still and silent.

A faint, warble-like singing noise can be heard, like that of whalebone runes, and electric arcs of lightning linger in the air, frozen like delicate spindles of cooked sugar. 

They are the only colour left in the room. 

Their blue is impossibly bright against the greyscale that has taken over. The smell of burnt flesh hangs heavy around her, smoke curled and stagnant, reminding Emily of clouds in a still, blue sky. 

Jindosh’s body is drawn taut in his struggle, unmoving from where time has stopped him at this moment. She can’t be sure that she too isn’t frozen, forced to witness this moment for all eternity as she recoils in horror at what Jindosh’s cruel machine is doing to his own mind. 

His pleas of mercy still echo in her ears.

Is this how far she’s sunken? 

It seemed fitting revenge to turn this monstrosity on Jindosh after he used it on Sokolov in his attempt to turn his mind to Jindosh’s purpose but witnessing it work is an atrocity she cannot bear. She should have simply killed Jindosh because after watching this, Emily wouldn’t even wish it on Delilah. 

“I am rarely disappointed by the choices humanity makes. Each entertaining in its success or failure.”

Emily turns, startled by the voice of The Outsider. He materializes in a spattering of barbed wire, bits of wood, and ash to stand at the foot of Jindosh’s chair. It’s clear now that she isn’t affected by the magic that holds time hostage. _His_ magic.

She knew there was something off about the energy of this Clockwork Mansion. Perhaps, buried under this observatory, some ancient crumbling shrine is still clinging to the magic of the old ways.

“Take this choice, for example.” The Outsider looks at her, and then at Jindosh. “You can break his mind with a machine of his own making, delaying some progress of your enlightened age, but allowing other minds to flourish in his vacuum. Deny Luca Abele his clockwork army. 

“In that choice, the Academy takes him back, mind slowed and dulled, but occasionally showing some of that old spark. Later, Anton Sokolov paints another portrait of him, and Kirin Jindosh goes from observing an odd numerator to being one.” A hint of a smirk appears on his lips before he stills, perhaps witnessing that future unfold before his eyes.

“…Or?” Emily asks after a moment. She doesn’t believe that The Outsider has appeared here and halted time to talk about choice without wishing to offer her one. 

The Outsider’s black eyes flick to hers, expression unreadable. “This machine works as intended. Jindosh had the current levels calibrated correctly but did not realize that the amount of time spent under its effect is critical to it producing the desired results. If you turn the machine off now, you’d have a willing slave, ready to bend to your every whim.”

Emily immediate recoils, disgusted. “And do to him what he wanted to do Sokolov?”

“You put him in that chair, did you not, Your Imperial Majesty?”

She looks away, ashamed. What sort of choice was this? Either make him a babbling fool or a slave? That is no choice at all. Perhaps she should just put a bolt in Jindosh’s heart and walk away from this whole mess.

“Beyond this moment, time is short, and you’ll only have a split-second to decide.” 

The Outsider disappears then, ash suspended on the air and the heavy presence of his magic lingering like a lady’s perfume. Emily feels a sudden, sharp pressure around her, then Jindosh’s pleas ring on the air once again. 

As she scrambles for the switch, Emily considers that she never really had a choice at all.

///

Before they leave the Clockwork Mansion, Emily commands Jindosh to evacuate it of all the servants, guards, and guests. When it’s only her, Sokolov, Jindosh, and his wandering clockwork soldiers, Emily has him escort them safely to the exit and then orders him to lock up his labyrinth. She shudders to think what might happen to anyone foolish enough to test it while there is no one home.

Surprisingly, it takes minimal effort to get through the carriage stations and back to the skiff with Jindosh, two of his clockwork soldiers in tow. The guards don’t question that one is carrying Sokolov’s unconscious body and the other a smallish trunk with things that Emily thought looked useful—Jindosh was too out of it to pick the stuff himself. 

Megan looks at her with surprise, wariness, and a touch of _‘What the Void are you doing?!’_ when Emily directs Jindosh’s soldier to place Sokolov in the boat. Then she climbs in herself. 

“Those things aren’t coming with us,” Megan says, voice firm and eyes flinty.

Emily turns to Jindosh. “Met us at on _The Dreadful Wale._ It’s a boat anchored out in the bay in an inlet to the west. Be discreet and tell no one where you’re going.”

Megan makes a noise somewhere between a protest and outrage, but Emily holds up a hand to silence her. “Later,” she tells Megan.

Jindosh nods, eyes still a little unfocused from his electroshock machine, but his steps through Aventa have been sure and his voice steady, so perhaps that look will fade in time. She prays that it does. It’s enough of a reminder with his very presence that she has made the man a slave, Emily doesn’t need to see it reflected in his eyes. 

Megan waits until they’ve reached open water to shout over the roaring engine of the skiff, “What the Void are you thinking? Telling that…that _animal_ where to find us?!”

Emily’s only response is to watch the lights of Karnaca shimmer on the surface of the water. 

Back on _The Wale_ , Emily and Megan help Sokolov to his room. He’s a little delirious from his imprisonment, probably suffering from malnourishment and dehydration. As they walk along, Sokolov’s weight supported between the two of them, Emily is shocked at his frailty. He always seemed to be larger than life in every aspect, from his knowledge to stories to capabilities and talents. She can hardly believe that he’s so… _old._ Her mind turns to her father, and she despises the fact that he will fall victim to time the same way Sokolov has. 

She leaves Megan to tend to him and moves to Doctor Hypatia’s room to explain the situation. Alexandria perks up at the chance to repay her debt and immediately heads to Sokolov’s room to assess his condition. Emily then ascends to the deck to await the arrival of Jindosh, mind turning as to possible locations to set him up in. Sokolov has a makeshift workspace on the lower level, and perhaps she can convince him to allow a guest to share his space. Outsider willing. 

The irony of that prayer isn’t lost on her.

Emily is leaning against the railing, feeling exhausted and sore from traversing Jindosh’s clever clockwork maze, and craving tobacco. She wishes to get this whole thing over with so she can have a frightfully cold bath in the small tin tub and get a restless sleep for the next few hours.

Megan’s boot tread sounds on the deck behind her. 

“You’d better explain what the Void is going on here because I will kill that sonuvabitch if he steps foot on this boat without one.”

Emily sighs, infinitely weary. “Jindosh had a machine, something he called an ‘electroshock chair,’ that he believed could…erase the bits of the mind where free will exists.”

Megan’s face goes slack with horror. “You didn’t…”

“I did.”

Megan is silent for a time, her previous anger fading as she looks at Emily, gaze hardening into something more calculating and assessing. “Then, he’s no longer a threat?”

“He’s done everything I’ve asked so far without question, but for how long or how deep it goes, I don’t know.” In the distance, an approaching boat can be heard. “Perhaps I’ll have to kill him after all.” Emily shrugs. 

“You should’ve to begin with.”

Emily nods in a sorry sort of agreement.

By the time Jindosh arrives on _The Dreadful Wale,_ having purchased a large skiff of his own to accommodate the weight of his two clockwork soldiers, he seems recovered from his earlier glassy-eyed obedience. Megan makes a snarky comment about the size of his boat and Jindosh uses all of his cutting wit to retaliate. In fact, nothing seems to have changed regarding Kirin Jindosh, save for the fact that he’s on their boat with his menacing machines and looking somewhat put out at having to be this far ashore. 

It’s not until Emily snaps in her harshest Empress voice, “Shut up,” to his endless smug prattling that, like a trap door locking shut, Jindosh’s mouth clicks closed. Megan’s eyebrows raise. “Apologize to her. She’s kindly letting your carcass on her boat.”

Jindosh bows. “My sincerest of apologies, Miss,” and Megan’s eyebrows threaten to disappear off her face altogether. As he rises, Emily notes that same glassy-eyed look has returned. Perhaps he only looks that way when someone gives him an order. 

“Okay, that’s creepy,” Megan says.

“You believe it uncomfortable to watch?” Jindosh asks, shaking himself in an apparent attempt to clear his head. “Just imagine being on the receiving end,” and Megan looks at Emily with a disappointed frown, like she didn’t believe Emily could sink so low.

A cot is set up in the engine room for Jindosh to use, and Emily figures that once Dr. Hypatia has recovered enough to leave, he can have her room instead. Miraculously, he keeps his complaining to a minimum upon seeing the accommodations. Though that might have been because it occurred to her then to order him to stay aboard _The Wale_ until she permitted him to leave and that order unleashes a silent rage that leaves him speechless for several minutes. After which, Emily takes him to Sokolov’s makeshift workshop, and Jindosh immediately moves to take over, his trunk unfurling like a great cat settling in the sun. 

The two clockwork soldiers are curled up on the deck, near the prow, where they will be out of sight, but readily available should their services be needed. Megan refused to allow either one of them below deck or to be put on patrol and Emily doesn’t blame her in the least. 

Doctor Hypatia closes the door to Sokolov’s room as Jindosh beings puttering about. With a non-stop commentary on the regrettable fact that he now has limited resources and the deplorable state that Sokolov’s workshop is in and how he can’t possibly be expected to produce anything of value from these little bundles of copper wire and processed whale oil. Emily watches him from the doorway, rolling her eyes and wondering when Sokolov will be well enough to give her an earful about this decision. Megan has taken a seat in the now-closed room with him, watching Alexandria work just as Emily is watching Jindosh, so she has no illusions that she’ll get away with only a half-truth. 

Not that Sokolov couldn’t figure it out on his own.

“I always thought inventors liked a challenge,” Emily says when she can’t stand his noise any longer. “Are you afraid of a little challenge?”

“Challenge? Certainly not. Being stabbed in the back in the middle of the night? Absolutely.” He gives her a dark look.

“As if you wouldn’t deserve it, but I don’t need your back to be turned to stab you, Jindosh.”

He snorts. “You don’t _need_ to stab me at all, do you? Not now. But need and want are two very different things.”

Emily folds her arms. “If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve. This was the alternative.”

“And I should be grateful, hmm? Get down on bended knee and praise the great Emily Kaldwin and her pacifistic ways? You’ll forgive me if I don’t,” Jindosh sneers.

“Oh, now is the time you get righteous about this? Now that it’s your mind twisted to obey every whim? You wouldn’t have given it a second thought if you could turn Anton to your cause with that chair of yours.”

“No. I wouldn’t’ve, and I still wouldn’t, given a chance.”

Emily gives him a disgusted look. “You’re reprehensible.”

“And yet, who among us is the slave?”

She stalks over to the worktable and slams her crossbow on the surface of it. “Use those clever clockwork devices of yours to improve this,” she orders, and as Jindosh’s gaze clouds, she feels a savage victory. “If you can’t find what you need by scrounging around, I might be able to find it at a black market. Let me know, hmm?” 

“Certainly, Your Imperial Majesty.”

///

The next two nights are rife with nightmares, more so than ever before. 

Usually, it’s just glimpses of The Void, and whatever cruelties her mind can dream up concerning what Delilah might be doing to her father. 

Now, she dreams of Jindosh crying out as she pulled the switch on his electroshock chair and _laughing._ Laughing as the nobility of the land line up, poked and prodded by the Grand Guard as they all wait their turn for a chance to forever, willingly serve their Empress. Both times she wakes in a cold sweat, shivering and sick as she wonders if the dream is simply a product of a guilty conscious or some horrible alternate reality that is happening as she lives this one. With how often The Outsider speaks of choice, she can’t help but fear the latter.

In the morning, she is haunted, short-tempered with anyone who speaks to her, and avoids Jindosh like the rat plague.

On the third day after another night of terrible dreams, Sokolov asks to see her. He is much recovered, even after these few short days, or so Doctor Hypatia says. Emily goes to see her old mentor with some trepidation, not that she could deny him an audience, but it means passing through his commandeered workshop. 

Jindosh spares her a short look as she walks through the open door and across the workshop behind him. He looks to be as tired and haggard as her, though she can’t imagine what would haunt his dreams with sufficient malice to make his sleep as unrestful hers. 

Once in Sokolov’s room, Emily leans against the small desk and tries to keep her arms from folding in defence. This isn’t a conversation she’s been looking forward to—by The Abbey, what will her _father_ say? Then, to her surprise, Jindosh leans against the door frame, using a stained cloth that smells faintly of paint thinner to wipe his hands free of grease. 

“So…” Sokolov’s deep voice rumbles, drawing Emily’s attention to where he’s reclining on his cot. “I thought that in my old age, I might yet be of use to another coup and offer information vital to the cause, but you’ve outdone me and brought a source whose knowledge far outstrips my own.” Sokolov gives her a faint smirk and Emily frowns and looks at the floor. “Kirin, tell our disposed Empress what you know about Lady Ashworth.”

Jindosh frowns, looking every inch himself. No glassy eyes or immediate obedience. Has it worn off? 

“The Head of the Royal Conservatory?” Emily asks, wondering what such a woman would have to do with someone like Delilah, but Jindosh doesn’t answer.

“Quickly now,” Sokolov says, that same smirk playing around the edges of his mouth, “Before she orders the information out of you and you hasten to reply like one of your clockwork soldiers.”

“How I wish I could order you about, Sokolov. I would get much amusement out of watching you grovel on my command,” Jindosh replies with bored malice and then flings the cloth on the table behind him. The prosthesis on his left hand is missing, Emily notes even as she frowns at his stalling, and he tucks that hand in the pocket of his trousers when he turns back to them.

Sokolov laughs, a raspy, gravelly thing, and says, “Her Imperial Majesty’s patience grows thin, Kirin, but don’t comply on my wish. I’d rather like to watch you jump to her command. Always knew you needed a firm hand.”

“Void _take_ you, Sokolov,” Jindosh replies with feeling and then turns to her, expression smoothing out. “Lady Breanna Ashworth, the Empire’s most esteemed curator and a powerful practitioner of magic—” Emily’s burrow furrows slightly. Does she too, have the Outsider’s mark? How many people are walking around with these abilities? “—is currently holed up in the Royal Conservatory. It’s been closed to the public for the last six months on the thin excuse of mites.”

“Why the conservatory?” Emily asks as she pulls out her little notepad to write down the critical details. Sokolov points to a pen sitting on the desk, and she turns to grab it.

“Why not? It’s as good a place as any to plot and scheme.”

Emily gives him a hard look as she pauses in her quick scribbling and Jindosh huffs, seemingly annoyed.

“Because she’s managed to amass a massive collection of occult artifacts, most of which were swiped from the Overseers’ grubby hands as she cried historical importance and they raged in impotence.” He laughs in genuine amusement. “There really isn’t much more enjoyable than screwing with those righteous pricks, especially when one can do it legally. 

“Breanna’s put most of that occult collection to work for her as part of a device she and I built. A lovely little mix of science and magic that I’m sure the Overseers would just love to rip into tiny little heretical pieces. We call it The Oraculum.”

“And what does this device do?”

Jindosh’s expression gleams with pride and gleeful wickedness as he says, “Listens to and influences the prophesies of the Oracular Order.”

Emily’s mouth drops open in surprise, and even Sokolov looks taken aback; Jindosh preens under their shocked gazes. Their reaction must be the reason he was so forthcoming just now, rather than the threat of being commanded to speak. 

Overseer, Abbey, and _Void!_ It’s almost impossible to imagine the amount of havoc that could be wrought by influencing the Blind Sisters. It’s utterly insidious. And brilliant, she’ll give them that. The Overseers will be relentless once they realize that Delilah’s a witch and rules the empire through magic. She could make what will be one of her greatest enemies to her reign an ally through the Sisters. 

“How do I destroy it?” Emily demands, hand tight around the pen.

He gives a one-shouldered shrug, eyes slightly glassy in the wake of that command, but he doesn’t appear to be any more obedient than before. “Any sort of explosive force will likely be enough, a hand grenade or the like. It’s not impervious. Though, if you wanted to get really creative you could damage a lens or two and it might just explode in a shower of electrical energy. Of course, electricity is only half of its power, most of its magic comes from Breanna herself with the occult objects simply focusing it—” he waves a dismissive hand, “—do with that what you will.”

There’s silence for a time when Jindosh finishes speaking, and Emily’s mind whirls as she considers how to get to Ashworth, how to destroy The Oraculum, and the consequences if she fails to do either. Sokolov banishes Jindosh from the room with a wave and few words, and he seems eager enough to leave without much more than a simple parting remark.

As the door closes, she tries to gather enough of her wits to speak. Sokolov gives her the time she needs.

“I always thought to go to the Conservatory with Wyman,” she says. It just suddenly occurs to her then and jumps out of her mouth instead of something sensible like possible building entrances or where Ashworth’s office might be.

Sokolov makes a noise of acknowledgement. “Is he safe?”

“Yes, in Morley. Though, for how long depends. His father…” she trails off and waves a hand to indicate the harsh manner in which the Earl of Carlyle pushes Wyman to get closer to the crown. “I’d like to think he wouldn’t put Wyman in harm's way like that, but he’s a man possessed.”

Sokolov snorts. “You should have nipped that in the bud years ago, my dear.”

“I know,” Emily sighs, voice watery. “It just seemed easier.” 

She never really cared for the responsibility of the crown and Wyman didn’t mind being there with her to run the Isles. She didn’t realize at first that was because his father kept pushing him to be the power behind the throne, but when she figured it out, it was almost a relief. Someone else to worry about taxes and levies and Parliament and everything else that was unspeakably boring to her just a short time ago. 

“It is only a failure if you learn nothing from it,” Sokolov rumbles and carefully sits up on the cot. Then he pats the space beside him, and Emily makes a beeline for it. As he wraps an arm around her shoulders she starts to cry. It’s the first time since all this began that she’s allowed herself to do so.

It takes her some time to cry herself out over all the grief and fear and self-loathing that seems to be permeating her life as of late. She deserved to have her throne taken from her; she never really appreciated it to begin. Perfectly content to rule with Wyman doing the bulk of the work, and always looking to escape at the next available opportunity. 

What did she care that the people of Serkonos suffered under the Duke as long as the silver flowed? She’d heard the rumours of unsafe mining conditions and slave-like work hours that the Duke had imposed in the absence of Aramis Stilton, but it was distant and unimportant to her own supposed suffering. 

What did she care that someone was slaughtering her opponents when all it led to were some annoying rumours and cowed nobles? It made it that much easier to be a ruler with one foot always out the door. 

Now, in her fight to get back something she once treated a burden, Emily feels herself sinking to their level of depravity. She slaughtered Mortimer Ramsey without a second thought in her rage at Alexi’s death and to somehow make up for that she saved Doctor Hypatia from her serum-induced demon, only to make a slave out of Kirin Jindosh because The Outsider gave her a choice to do so. Emily has no idea if she can even defeat Delilah, given her apparent immortality, and her magical abilities far outstrip Emily’s. All she’s running on right now is anger and the fear that if she doesn’t do _something,_ her father will be lost to her just as her mother was. 

(The mechanically augmented heart she keeps in a box in her room is no substitute for her mother’s actual presence, and she does her best not to get attached to its achingly familiar voice.)

“Do you feel better now?” Sokolov asks when her tears have dried up.

Emily sighs shakily. “Not especially, no. I doubt I will until father is safe, and Delilah is defeated. Even then, it’s suspect.”

Sokolov nods and, to her extreme relief, changes the subject. “I suggest talking with Megan about The Conservatory. She knows this city’s alleys and hidey-holes well and might be able to provide suggestions for infiltration. And I believe Kirin has a list of things for you to buy at a black market while you do reconnaissance.”

“No chastisement, then?” Emily asks, twisting her signet ring.

“That you thought my crossbow needed improvement? Hrmp. Guess I’m slipping in my old age.”

Emily gives a humourless laugh. “The reload time on it _is_ a little long, but that’s not what I meant.”

Sokolov observes her for a moment. “I suppose it depends on how it happened,” he says eventually. “I didn’t think his machine worked as intended.”

“Apparently, timing is key. I didn’t initially mean for it to happen. I meant to….” Emily trails off, unable to actually say aloud that she wanted to strip Jindosh of his mind and turn him into a blathering simpleton.

“Initially?”

“…Someone told me how to make it work. I shouldn’t have listened.”

Sokolov gives her an assessing look, then takes her left hand in his. “I imagine that under these wraps, I’d find the same mark that graces Corvo’s hand and _that_ someone gave you a choice.”

“Father never spoke of him…I thought The Outsider was a fairytale told to scare children,” Emily whispers, “but I dream of the Void at night, and he speaks to me at his shrines, and I do impossible things now, cruel things, all because I have the choice.”

“You always had a choice. Indeed, as Empress, your choices could’ve cause cruelty on a mass scale, but I never considered you cruel. Now or then. Perhaps a little too sheltered and a little too unconcerned, but what does one expect when they grow up with wealth and privilege?” Sokolov pats her knee. “What’s done is done. Perhaps in time, Kirin’s mind will heal itself, or perhaps it won’t, but for your sake, my dear, I hope it doesn’t.”

Emily gives him a confused, horrified look. “What?”

Sokolov sighs. “Kirin is many things, but forgiving was never one of them. If he ever gets free of this hold you have on him, he will put that clever, razor-sharp mind of his toward destroying you for reducing him to this. And with the knowledge gleaned about how you work through this experience, he may well succeed.” He moves to cup her face. “Another Kaldwin should not meet with an assassin’s blade, my heart would not take it.”

Emily places a hand over his, a grim half-smile making a brief appearance as she replies, “Nor would mine.”

When she leaves Sokolov’s room, Jindosh hands her a list of supplies. 

“The first three things are mandatory if you want your crossbow back in working order before you assault The Conservatory. Of the rest, procure what you can before either your funds or their supplies run out.”

“Alright,” Emily agrees and folds the list away. “Anything else?”

“Some white leaf tobacco if you can find it. I have a nicotine craving and headache you wouldn’t believe.” 

Emily gives the list a quick glance and knowing her own headaches could stand a little tobacco too. “Haven’t seen much of it in the shops, but I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Do that.”

She finds Megan on the main deck, watching the ships move in and out of Karnaca’s harbour. In a few hours, Megan will move the vessel to another little inlet somewhere else in the bay so that their continued presence is less noticeable. Though, they likely aren’t as well hidden as they like to believe since Jindosh found them with little trouble. 

Megan has more details about the lockdown in the Cyria Gardens, where The Royal Conservatory is situated and tells her the quickest route to get there. Emily sets out for some reconnaissance in the late afternoon, hoping the bustle of the still open streets will help hide her from the Grand Guard.

///

The black-market dealer just outside the Gardens has some white leaf tobacco and is willing to discount the price because of Emily’s massive purchase of supplies for Jindosh. She decides to tuck it away in her room’s desk drawer instead of giving it to Jindosh. There’s a closed smoke shop in the Campo Seta Dockyard District that she might be able to break into for a pipe.

///

It takes a week for Jindosh to finish working on her crossbow. 

A week of short reconnaissance missions that have her chafing at the bit to take Ashworth down and strip Delilah of another ally. She’s got the guard rotations down and has found a path past the Wall of Light at the entrance to the conservatory that will lead to open windows on the third floor. Nonetheless, she can’t go until she has her crossbow back. It’s her best weapon aside from the magic that lets her move to ledges and balconies far beyond her average reach. 

It’s also a week of listening to Megan snap and growl about Jindosh tearing through packing crates and picking apart non-essential bits of the ship looking for the right parts. Even though Emily got nearly everything on his list (she half expects he’s doing it out of spite, but isn’t entirely sure and doesn’t want to interfere in case he isn’t). And a week of lessening nightmares but more time spent in the howling reaches of The Void.

Emily wakes suddenly from a fitful vision of the Void, cold sweat sticking to her body. The howling winds and whispered voices echo in her ears as she sits up in bed, trying to dispel the sound of Delilah’s poisonous voice telling her that her long-dead mother’s childish mistake led her elder sister to a lifetime of suffering. 

She rises from bed, grabs her tobacco tin and pipe, and heads for the main deck to have a smoke and clear her mind. 

White leaf tobacco is as scarce as ever in Serkonos, and Emily uses it sparingly. However, tonight she needs a bit of comfort.

As she pushes open the heavy door that will allow her to step into the Karnacan night, she hears the distinctive whisper of a crossbow bolt flying through the air and thunking into something solid. Then, the rapid-fire of two more bolts follow it. Emily falls into a crouch, scanning the deck for the source of the noise, ready to slam into the enemy and knock them off balance enough for her to…do something. Why didn’t she think to grab her father’s sword? Damn it all.

“Ah, how fortuitous; I’ll kill Isle’s most wanted criminal and free myself of this curse in one fell swoop,” Jindosh says lazily from somewhere near the prow just before she hears the whisper of a bolt. She moves without thinking, focusing on his voice and using it to place her where he is.

Emily materializes directly in front of him and wraps a hand around the wrist, holding her crossbow to prevent him from striking out at her in surprise as she growls, “Drop it.” The crossbow clatters to the deck. “Pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll run my blade through your heart.”

He seems surprised, but not shocked when he recovers his wits that she moved from one end of the ship to another in a moment. Though, she supposes that he’s no stranger to magic. 

“The next time, I won’t bother with a tawdry victory crow,” Jindosh snarls, the low lamplight of the lantern on the railing above highlighting every flaw in his face and making it seem exceedingly harsh and cruel.

“I forbid you to kill me,” Emily hisses, silently chastising herself for not making that clear earlier. She only thought to mention the clockwork soldiers at the mansion not entirely sure he had it in him to put a blade to her himself, “I forbid you to hire someone to kill me, and with those same restrictions I forbid you to kill anyone on this boat or my father.”

With every command, Jindosh’s eyes get more and more glassy, until he looks just as he did when he rose from the chair of his electroshock machine. “Of course, Your Imperial Majesty,” he mumbles. 

She lets go of his wrist then, pushing him back a step and scoops her crossbow from the ground. When she starts away from him, Emily begins to shake with adrenaline, anger, and shame. It would be easy to blame Jindosh for making her do this, but the original choice was hers. All ensuing consequences are hers alone to bear.

Back in her room, with the hatch above her bed propped open and her pipe smouldering away on the ledge, she goes over the improvements that Jindosh made to her crossbow and is amazed at the work he put into it. 

A new cycling chamber that holds five bolts at once so that every time one is fired, the mechanism turns, loading a new bolt into the flight groove almost the instant the first one left it. There are also now a pair of grooved wheels, that reminds Emily of carriage car wheels, set at the top of the crossbow’s limbs where a new string is looped around and crisscrossed below the flight groove. This improvement makes drawing the string back almost effortless and thus exceedingly quick to her practiced hands. Given how far the bolt sinks into one of the heavy wooden trunks that are stored in her room, they’ve also improved the force at which with bolts impact.

Overall, she’s pleased with the improvements and is excited to try it out in action. However, the added gears and wheels make it several pounds heavier, so it will likely throw her shots off until she gets used to the new weight. She’ll have to practice firing it in the morning and hope that Jindosh’s apparent testing (she doubts he was on the deck specifically to kill her, it was simply too good of an opportunity to pass up) means that the kinks are mostly worked out. Emily knows she’ll not be able to wait any longer to go after Ashworth now that her favoured weapon is back in her hands.

///

Breanna Ashworth screams as Emily activates The Oraculum with the flawed lenses, and the sound seems to travel through the Void itself. Bringing with it every witch (Jindosh neglected to mention that bit of intelligence and Megan’s cryptic ‘eclectic crowd’ was no better) still alive in The Conservatory rushing to her aid. 

She battles them, pushing herself to move as faster and faster, using her Far Reach and firing her crossbow with as much accuracy as she can manage against an enemy that can disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye. Emily doesn’t believe she would’ve survived the initial onslaught if she hadn’t already been picking them off for kidnapping and using civilians in their experimental magic rituals. 

She doesn’t know how she makes it back to the skiff alive. Bleeding like she is from all the magical thorns that pierced her and the clever blade work of the witches. Emily doesn’t remember much beyond stumbling into the skiff. Just snatches of Sokolov’s voice, Hypatia’s hands, and pain when the laudanum wears off.

She wakes an unknown amount of time later. Groaning quietly, she feels like a carriage run off the rails into the side of a building. She rises slowly, needing to use the privy, feeling the sting and stretch of stitches pulling in a hundred different spots. On her desk, there are two vials of health elixir. Emily downs them both, even though the taste has always made her vaguely nauseous. From there, she hobbles to the head, wondering if she’ll need to vomit as a well but manages to keep the elixirs down. Hopefully, they’ll speed her healing enough that she won’t need any more laudanum. 

At the end of the hall she’s slowly hobbled down, Emily hears Sokolov and Jindosh arguing in the main hold—what she considers the War Room. She heard them going at it the whole length of the hall, but now their voices are loud enough to carry through the slightly open door. 

“She nearly died!” Sokolov roars. “Has that fact escaped you?”

“Obviously not. I’m still here, aren’t I?” Jindosh snaps. “And while I may have hoped that Breanna would kill her, or at the very least one of her annoying acolytes would, I did _not_ sabotage her crossbow in any fashion to make the job any easier. She commanded I improve it, and I could do nothing other than that. Her skill in using it is beyond my control.”

“Yet, you tried to kill her with it scarcely the night before.”

Jindosh makes a noise of annoyance. “Does anyone on this cursed ship sleep? And yes, I did attempt it because she was foolish enough to forget to put that on the list of things ‘Kirin can’t do’. Attempt being the keyword here since clearly, she lived long enough for Breanna to have a go at her.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Emily pauses so that her footsteps aren’t overheard.

“I’m surprised you had it in you to do it yourself,” Sokolov says, anger making his voice very deep and rough.

Jindosh gives a humourless laugh and replies with a sneering, bitter tone, “Ah, this is just like being back at the Academy: command to work on projects I have no interest in and you underestimating my capabilities. Do you suppose if I slave long enough under our deposed Imperial Majesty, I might yet get my Master’s of Engineering?”

“You aren’t worthy of it, Kirin.”

“As if you _ever_ had any idea of my worth.”

As Emily curls back up on her bed, she wonders what exactly Jindosh did to be kicked out of the Academy. The Outsider told her that he once created a machine that drank seawater and played music that brought people to tears and that the Academy destroyed it when he was expelled. That, to her, speaks of some impossibly horrible act because she can’t fathom any other reason as to why they would destroy something that sounds so utterly _wonderous._

It’s easy enough for her to believe he did something like that given the things Jindosh is capable of, but how he spoke of the Academy…well, Emily knows that it too has its flaws. She can scarcely count the number of times Parliament has fought with the Academy over issues both important and exceedingly trivial.

When she wakes again, it’s to the sound the hinges of her door squeaking, and Emily carefully turns to see who has come to visit. Sokolov enters carrying a tray of cold food and water. She doesn’t feel especially hungry at this moment, but she slowly sits up in bed, feeling the stitches stretch again. Sokolov sets the tray down next to her and then pulls the chair from her desk to sit in.

There’s a regular feast on the tray; Bastillian figs, a Tyvian pear, potted whale meat, and dark bread. She picks up one of the figs; Emily hasn’t had figs since Dunwall. 

“Megan has been helping some smugglers bring their items into Karnaca’s black market,” Sokolov tells Emily as she takes a bite of the ripe fruit. “Usually in exchange for coin, but this last run they paid with some food stores in lieu of money, so enjoy this repast while it lasts.”

“I will.”

Sokolov uses his small pocketknife to cut a slice off the pear as he asks, “How are you feeling?”

Emily shrugs. “Stiff and sore and exactly as one might expect after going up against a coven of witches.”

Sokolov snorts. “I see you took the elixirs, good. Alexandria will probably check on your stitches today to see if they’re ready to come out.”

“You didn’t sew me up yourself?”

“My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.”

She makes a noise of acknowledgement, and they sit together in comfortable silence while Emily finishes what she can of the food. Feeling better for having eaten, she says to him, “That crossbow saved my life.”

“I thought I saw you limping down the hall last night.”

Emily nods slightly, a faint blush coming to her cheeks at being caught out. “Jindosh is a prick and tried to kill me with it, but his work is sound.” It feels strange to defend him to Sokolov, but without those modifications, she’s not sure she would’ve made it out alive, even with The Outsider’s magic.

“I know his skills very well; his inventions are rarely a disappointment,” Sokolov agrees. “But he willfully neglected to inform you of the others residing in Conservatory with Ashworth. When Alexandria and I saw your wounds, it was clear that a single foe had not caused them all. I was sorely tempted to kill him for that omission.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to queue for that privilege,” she replies with a small smirk.

Sokolov laughs, a deep rumbling sound that she’s missed. “Yes, I imagine I would.”

Emily sinks back down on the bed, feeling sleep pulling at her. She’s not terribly entertaining right now, she knows. “Will you tell me why Jindosh expelled from the Academy?”

“Politics,” Sokolov replies with a frown after a moment.

Emily gives him a questioning look. “He didn’t do something awful to deserve it?”

“It depends, I suppose, on how you look at it. Others have been expelled for both less and more, depending on the current Council.”

“That’s rather cryptic,” Emily says with a yawn.

“I’ve taken a solemn vow not to speak of Council proceedings outside the Academy walls, and as much as I have come to disagree with the secrecy of the Academy, I gave my word.” Sokolov gives her a smirk. “You’ll have to ask Kirin if you want the sordid details.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to resolve myself to never knowing. I won’t demand an answer, and he’ll never tell me willingly.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. If Kirin believes it will solicit some sympathy from you, he may well tell you. He knows he has very little power now and will use whatever is at hand to gain some form of currency to influence and manipulate you.”

Emily sighs. “And isn’t that a comforting thought.”

“As Empress, you should be accustomed to people doing such things.”

“Just because I see it regularly, doesn’t mean I don’t hate it or wish people would come to me on their own merits with honest intentions instead of backstabbing machinations.”

“I’m afraid that’s a luxury you’ll never have, my dear.”

And that’s precisely why she was always so eager to escape.

Doctor Hypatia comes by her room about an hour later. Emily is drowsing instead of writing like she meant to do before the details of her time in The Conservatory become fuzzy. Hypatia removes stitches in most of Emily’s shallower wounds as the flesh has healed well enough with the aid of the health elixirs to hold itself together without them. The two deep sword wounds that she took are not yet ready to have their stitches out, and Alexandria tells her another couple of days, at least, before they’ll be ready.

“I’m leaving tomorrow for the Dust District,” Hypatia tells her as she washes her hands at Emily’s sink. “Anton will be able to remove those last few stitches when the times comes.”

“Thank you for all your help. I’m not sure what we would’ve done without you.”

Hypatia gives her a sad sort of smile. (She always seems vaguely sad, whether that’s because she remembers what that other version of her did or something else, Emily can’t say.) “It’s the least I could do.”

“If I may ask, do you remember anything about that visit you mentioned before to Aramis Stilton?” With every ally of Delilah’s she takes down, Emily is more and more confident that something significant happened just before he locked himself away in his mansion. She needs to speak with him or search his home for clues about Delilah's rise and perhaps even her apparent immortality.

Hypatia thinks for a moment as she dries her hands. “It’s all fragmented, but I have remembered a few things that might be of use if I could tell you about them.”

“What do you mean, if?”

“We were… _bound_ to secrecy beyond that of a simple oath. I remember that part quite well. Perhaps as a side effect of the magic? I can’t say. Those in Delilah’s circle were present when that thing happened.”

Emily sighs, disappointed. “Well, that’s better than nothing, I suppose.” If this magical binding effects them all, the mystery surrounding Aramis Stilton maybe something she’ll just have to discover on her own. “Thank you, Alexandria, and if I don’t see you before you leave, have a safe journey, and I wish you well.”

“Thank you, Ma’am, I wish the same for you too.”

Before she leaves Emily alone, Hypatia orders bed rest for the rest of the week, and as much as she hates the idea of being cooped up on the boat, Emily knows that she must be back in fighting form as quickly as possible. Especially considering that now it isn’t only the Grand Guard she must actively avoid, but also the Overseers themselves. 

Megan informed her the previous day that Ashworth freely gave up information about Emily’s involvement in The Conservatory, twisting it to make it sound like she was far more involved than merely attempting to disassemble The Oraculum. They’re now actively looking for her not only as the ‘Crown Killer’ but also as a witch. 

Emily regrets not killing the woman.

///

It’s another three days before she’s strong enough for anything more than a walk to the head, but Sokolov seems to enjoy waiting on her, and he tells her about the things he’s been up to since she last saw him in Dunwall. In listening to him weave his tales, Emily finds a peace that’s eluded her since the massacre of the throne room and in what must be the first time in weeks, she laughs. 

When Sokolov isn’t with her, Emily sketches some designs for a corselet. 

It’s been made abundantly apparent by the fiasco at The Conservatory that all the reconnaissance and information gathering in the world isn’t going to prevent a blade or magical thorns from finding their mark, and bone charms can only do so much. She needs something more substantial to protect her from the things she can’t anticipate. 

Invention and design aren’t exactly her areas of expertise, so she tries to make a few armour designs that make sense with her size, weight capabilities, and overall preference to stealth. Hopefully, one among them will meet with enough credibility for Jindosh to create, but she imagines there will be much derision on his part when she presents her idea. 

Emily hasn’t often been mocked in her life, and she’s not looking forward to willingly subjecting herself to it.

The fourth night of her bedrest has Emily burning with restless energy. She’s slept much in the last while, and her body is actively rebelling against any more. After watching the waves lazily lap against the hull from her porthole as the sun sets, turning the water brilliant jewel-like colours of pink and gold, Emily finally decides to put her journal away. She meant to do some more sketching but hasn’t accomplished anything but idlingly wasting time as her feet beat out the tempo of a court waltz she hates and is annoyingly popular right now. 

Or was, anyway.

She stands from her bed, forcing herself to straighten out her back even though it pulls at her still healing wounds and stiff muscles, and grabs her pipe and tin of tobacco from her desk drawer. 

Karnacan nights are so incredibly warm—it never ceases to amaze her. She’d never be able to wander around at night in Dunwall without her coat, and the inlet they’ve recently moved to is sheltered from both the wind and the lights of Karnaca, so the night is utterly black and still. The sun did not linger long after Emily stopped watching it, and until the moon fully rises, it will be as dark as any seedy Dunwall alley. 

There’s a chair on the deck, next to the main hold’s hatch that Emily means to use. Before she sits down, however, she’ll make a few rounds on the desk, walking to stretch her legs and muscles, and burn off some of that restless energy. She moves slowly toward the chair as she allows her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. So, it’s not until she’s halfway along the hatch that she notices Jindosh’s nearly invisible form stretched out on a couple packing crates, watching the stars as they come out. Emily pauses in surprise and briefly considers going back below deck in light of what happened the last time they were alone together in the dark, before shaking her head at herself and continuing on.

Reaching the chair, she rolls it around a few loose crates and to the starboard side of the ship, its wheels making a loud racket in the quiet of the night. This draws Jindosh’s attention for a moment, though it can’t be the first time he’s heard her moving about, she hasn’t been silent. Neither of them says anything. Emily sits for a moment and packs her pipe, feeling the sponginess of the tobacco with her fingers to judge whether she’s packed it tightly enough or not. 

When she first tried pipe smoking, she assumed that it was similar to packing a hookah bowl, and upon lighting it, the smoke from the tobacco burnt her tongue and this foul-tasting water backwashed through the stem into her mouth. She nearly swore off smoking all-together after that, or at the very least, until she could return to Dunwall. Then, a few days later, she spotted a dock worker smoking a pipe alone near a small wharf and asked him what went into it. 

As he gamely explained the art of the pack and pointed out where she’d gone wrong with her tobacco, Emily realized that hookah packing and pipe packing were utterly opposite endeavours. The first thing she did when she returned to _The Dreadful Wale_ was set her white leaf tobacco out to dry. Wet tobacco in a pipe was a _bad_ thing. 

Since then, it had been more or less successful, but this was only her third go with a cloud of proper pipe smoke, and she was still getting used to the warmth of it. In the end, the buzz was the same, and that is all that she is looking for.

Jindosh watches her keenly as she works, and Emily can almost taste the craving he must surely have. Since he isn’t allowed to leave _The Wale,_ there’s no opportunity for him to procure anything he might need or want on his own. After obtaining her true light on the tobacco, Emily stands and sets the tin down next to his head. 

“I found half-dozen at The Conservatory,” she tells him and starts walking the width of the boat. “I’ll bring you another one tomorrow.”

“As a reward?” he asks, a snide sort of tone to his voice, but she hears him pick up the tin nonetheless.

“If you’d like,” she replies, serenely, refusing to rise to the bait, and it puts an end to their conversation. That suits her just fine.

Emily makes four laps around the outside of the boat, going from starboard, to stern, to port, to bow, and back to starboard, before she’s panting like she’d run hard through a mile of city streets and alleys, hopping from balcony to rooftop to the ground again whenever an obstacle presented itself. She gets a real feeling of just how long this recovery is going to take and becomes angry and frustrated by it. It’ll take a month, at least, to get back into her regular shape. A month! Not including the one that’s nearly gone now. How much more time must she give to Delilah to allow her twisted reign to continue? 

The chair squeaks under her weight as Emily settles slowly in it, pulling in as deep of breaths as she can and not cause the blade wound in her side to twinge painfully. She leans back in the chair and sinks down, so her neck is supported by the backrest. She stares at the stars, her finished pipe clutched loosely in one hand. When the gasping need for air eases, Emily looks for familiar constellations in the sky and wonders if Wyman is looking at the same ones in Morley. 

When he left Dunwall, four months seemed an annoying amount of time to be away, but she knew it would pass soon enough. Now, he feels impossibly far away, and she fears she won’t see his easy, laughing face again. 

There’s a long quiet while she and Jindosh exist in their own separate worlds, then Jindosh shifts on his makeshift bed and sits up, swinging his legs over the side like he’s about to get off. However, he pauses, hands flat on the surface of the packing crate and his polished ceramic prosthetic glimmering in the rising moonlight. 

“Do you dream of The Void?” he asks, voice oddly flat, and head bowed.

She almost replies with a flippant, “Doesn’t everyone?” because that’s the safe answer. That was the truth she knew before all… _this._ She did sometimes dream of The Void back then, snatched glimpsed at the end of a nightmare or a stumbling step just before reaching true dreams. Now, it’s nearly the only thing she dreams of and judging by Jindosh’s posture, it’s the only thing he dreams of too.

“Yes,” Emily tells him with a croaking whisper. 

He leaves her alone on the deck then, a single nod the only acknowledgement she gets that he heard her answer.

///

Of late, Emily’s mornings are actually afternoons, and she only gets out of bed when the baking sun of Karnaca heats her room up too much to comfortably sleep in any longer. 

Part of her feels like some incurable lazybones for sleeping so late, but Sokolov reminds her that rest is key to recovery. In the quiet of her room, Emily tells herself that the only genuinely restful sleep she gets is when the sun starts to rise in the morning—as if The Void can’t touch her dreams while the sun is shining. 

She shares a late brunch with Sokolov sometime around one, or so her pocket watch tells her, and Emily shares her idea of having Jindosh fashion her some form of light armour. Sokolov doesn’t laugh immediately, which is always a good sign that a plan isn’t stupid, but when she shows her drawings, he raises an eyebrow, and that crushes a little something in her. Suddenly, she’s a child again trying so hard to please him with her sketching progress while he scolds her ignoring her anatomy lessons and tells her to do it again. Emily shakes off the feeling of inadequacy and focuses on Sokolov’s words.

“These are not workable patterns.” 

“I know,” Emily hastens to say, feeling dumb and childish. “They’re just ideas, something to build off. Surely Jindosh can fashion proper ones and make something far better than I can idly sketch.”

Sokolov hums, neither agreeing or disagreeing with that. After a moment, he closes her journal. “He won’t agree to do it.”

“That hardly matt—”

Sokolov holds up a hand to quiet her. “I suggest implying he can’t do it when he rejects your idea. His ego won’t let you be proven right. Unless you wish to spend the rest of your lives ordering him about like a hound? As amusing as that might be, it’s undoubtedly in your best interest to use other methods to get what you want out of him.”

Emily frowns and looks away; she should have already thought of something like that. 

“So, I should appeal indirectly to his vanity? He won’t just see right through that?”

“Yes,” Sokolov replies with a smirk, “but the fact that the challenge exists makes it impossible to pass up. He’ll do it because it provides the opportunity to prove you wrong.”

“Even though that’s what I wanted all along?”

Sokolov nods. “And you’ll both get what you want.”

It seems ridiculous that he would fall for such blatant manipulation, but out of the two of them, she supposes that Sokolov knows Jindosh’s personality best.

Later that afternoon, Emily decides to give Sokolov’s suggestion a try. She finds Jindosh working on the prow in the hot sun, down to his shirtsleeves, and the carcass of one of his clockwork soldiers spread out on the deck around him. One of the ship’s two audiographs is set on a crate nearby and is playing a strange sort of music that Emily can’t say she’s ever heard before. It has an almost metallic quality to it but isn’t harsh or grating in a way that description makes it out to be. 

It’s quite lovely, actually.

She watches him for a few minutes, convinced in the next moment he’ll notice her presence with some sort of snippy remark, but as the minutes tick by, it becomes evident that he didn’t hear her approach. 

It’s interesting to watch him work as he picks up various parts and examines them, checking for damage. This must be the soldier caught by her spring trap as it tried to rush her when she came out of the master suite and into the laboratory. Jindosh takes a file to some parts and a screwdriver to others, all the while talking under his breath to himself, though it’s not loud enough to hear distinctly over the sound of the music. 

Emily’s always enjoyed watching the process of something being created or improved. Probably because it reminds her of what she still thinks as a golden time at the Hound Pits Pub, where she watched Sokolov and Joplin create their joint arc pylon (with much bickering and nattering). Even now, watching Sokolov paint brings a kind of serenity to her, though it’s sometimes tinged with a desire to create something of her own, she’s never been able to capture people the way he does. He makes it seem so effortless.

Jindosh reaches for one of the clockwork soldier’s blades, and Emily stiffens for a moment, ready to move, but relaxes marginally when she reminds herself she forbade him killing her. He holds it up, letting the metal sparkle in the sunlight as he examines the length of it, and she can clearly see the edge is bent in one spot. Standing, with the blade still in hand, Jindosh turns and visibly starts upon seeing her, expression quickly going from surprise to anger. Before he has a chance to say anything, Emily holds up the two tins of tobacco she brought along as a bribe. 

“As promised,” she says, and Jindosh looks at them as she sets them down on the railing, and then back at her.

“You promised one, not two. What do you want now?”

_Well, it didn’t take him long to see through that,_ she thinks and then replies with the truth to gain some traction with him. 

“For you to make me something.”

“No,” Jindosh immediately answers and moves to set the sword down on another one of the loose packing crates that seem to dot the deck.

“You haven’t even heard what it is.”

He pulls off a pair of work gloves, tossing them on the crate where the one makes a heavy _thunk._ He waves one hand (sliding his left into his trouser pocket) in what is probably supposed to be an imperious gesture, but is ruined by his sweaty and sunburnt demeanour. “Well, by all means then. _Please._ I’m on pins and needles, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Armour,” she replies and Jindosh breaks into bright peels of laughter. Emily can’t help the embarrassed flush that rises to her cheeks, but she calmly talks over him. “Specifically, a corselet to protect against sword blows and those magical thorns the witches throw. It needs to be light, within reason, of course, and it needn’t stop a bullet. I have a bone charm for that.”

By the time she’s uttered that last sentence, Jindosh has quieted but is still looking at her like it’s all a great joke. “Well, I can now say, unequivocally, no. Do you have any idea how time-consuming that would be?”

The magic moment has arrived. “So, you can’t do it, then? After building these?” Emily gestures to his clockwork soldiers.

Jindosh narrows his eyes, his look of amusement vanishing. “I had a real workshop to build these in.”

“Even I could build one of these in _your_ workshop,” she scoffs, and he makes a noise of extreme disbelief. “The point of being the Grand Inventor is to do the seemingly impossible.”

The middle finger and thumb on Jindosh’s right hand start beating a rapid staccato against one another as he considers her words. Then, as if something suddenly occurs to him, Jindosh stills and with a calculating look says, “No.”

“What?” Emily blurts, surprised. She was confident he was going to agree.

“No,” he says again, the barest hint of a smirk playing on his lips.

“Why are you so difficult? I’ll simply command you to do it if you don’t agree.”

“Then do just that. _Make me._ ”

There’s something odd in Jindosh’s expression, aside from the calculation with which he’s looking at her. It's like he’s interested in what will happen next or doesn’t know what will happen next. Emily can’t see how that can be, they’ve done this already a half-dozen times, surely, he knows what will happen…doesn’t he? She hesitates briefly, worried that perhaps her control of him has slipped and all he needs in the confirmation before he picks up the discarded clockwork soldier’s blade and tries to kill her with it. 

She tenses, ready to move should he, and commands, “Craft me some armour with the previously stated requirements and restrictions.”

His eyes don’t go glassy the way she’s seen before, but he loses the defiant look, and his whole posture eases. After a moment, he pulls in a deep breath of air, rolling his shoulders as if testing the aftermath of her command.

“Alright,” Jindosh says, “I’ll need measurements first and foremost.” He glances around at his disassembled soldier, middle finger and thumb tapping again, thinking. She watches it for a moment, idly thinking how his square and blunt hands are almost at odds with the grace of the rest of him. Then, he kneels, picking up parts. “Where did I leave my sketchbook?” he mutters to himself as he starts reassembling the thing, movements practiced and quick.

Emily watches him for a few minutes more, brow furrowed and silently questioning, mind ticking over everything that’s passed between them in the last fortnight, knowing the dynamic between them has changed, but to what she can’t say for sure. 

Then she leaves him to it. 

The next afternoon, Sokolov congratulates her on successfully convincing Jindosh to work on her armour, and Emily nods, hiding her confusion. Did Jindosh tell Sokolov about it? Or did he just assume that she was successful because Jindosh was working on her project? 

“It’s better this way, my dear,” Sokolov says as they share their meal. “He isn’t affected by commands issued by us. Megan tried to get him to stop taking apart her ship for parts, and he laughed—I imagine he’d be delighted if _The Wale_ sunk…” Sokolov waves a hand, dismissing that trail of thought, and she has to admit, that doesn’t sound so bad. After all this is settled, Emily is quite sure she’ll never set foot on a ship again without a great deal of bribery. “What I mean is, I fear soon enough he won’t be affected by yours either.”

Emily hums in acknowledgement and thinks about Jindosh’s odd reaction to her command the day before. Perhaps the way Jindosh thinks influences the outcome of her commands as much as her wording.

After their lunch, she brings Jindosh her sketches, bracing for that same mockery from the day before, but knowing that if she doesn’t say something now, the final design may be something she doesn’t like, or worse, something that doesn’t work with her capabilities. She finds him below deck in the boat’s workshop, sitting in a chair she thinks is from the kitchen’s small eating table, with his boots propped on the surface of the heavy wooden table, sketching. His skin is red from his time in the sun yesterday, but not nearly the cooked shellfish colour she was expecting. 

As she levers herself onto the table, his eyes flick to her before returning to his book.

“Now what?” he asks. “Come to check my progress already?

“No. Wanted to add my two coins before you got too far. I’ve spent the past several days thinking about this armour and what I need it to do. Here—” Emily hands over the two pages of sketches she ripped from her journal, “—my measurements are included on the first page.”

Jindosh looks over the pages, flipping them this way and that as he studies them, taking the time to read her notes about movement flexibility she’s added. “The fourth one is an acceptable starting point, but the second sketch will do as well. Do you have a preference?”

Emily stares at him in blank surprise. “Uh…the fourth one.”

Jindosh nods, making a mark beside it. “I’ll need more than just your bust and waist measurements, but I’ll have to make a design first.”

“Alright.” She wants to ask what happened to his snide mockery but decides against bringing that down on herself if she can help it.

“Also, I’ll need to return to my laboratory to create this,” Jindosh adds off-handedly like he hasn’t asked for something completely and utterly off the table. Now she knows where his snide mockery went: he wanted something. 

“What? _No._ Absolutely not.” 

Jindosh gives her a hard look and Emily is somewhat surprised. She expected immediate obedience when she unequivocally denied that request. Does she need to be more specific? 

“The tools needed to complete this are there. Without them, this will take considerably longer, longer even than it will take you to recover from the witches’ treatment of you.” Jindosh raises an eyebrow. “You did want to get back to Dunwall sometime in the next two months, yes? _I_ certainly want you to leave as soon as possible.”

“We’ve made due so far getting the things needed. And aside from the myriad of utterly _obvious_ reasons why letting you back in that mansion is an absolute no, the Duke knows you’re missing now and will send a huge contingent of Grand Guard to secure you should you suddenly pop up again. Preventing you from building an army of those monstrosities for him was half the reason I paid you a visit.”

That calculating look from last night makes its reappearance, and Emily wonders if she’s only started seeing it now because he has stopped whining at the injustice of being essentially her slave and started turning his mind toward possibilities of escape. Jindosh closes his sketchbook with a _snap_.

“Here are the reasons that I must be allowed to return to my workshop: One, you don’t have the tools necessary on board, and it will be too time-consuming stealing them or purchasing them from smugglers. Two, tanned whale hide is not inexpensive, certainly not at the weight needed for this project, and this rag-tag group of yours does not have the funds needed. Three, if you wish for me to continue being useful for future endeavours, I need my equipment, my lab, and my space. Being holed up on this leaking rust bucket might well be acceptable for Sokolov or Foster, but it is not for me, nor I imagine you.”

It’s not. It’s _really, really_ not, and Emily can’t decide if she’d unaccountably spoiled by living her life in the comfort and ease of Dunwall Tower or if the situation on _The Wale_ is honestly that bad. Sokolov never complains about it, and Megan just quietly goes about repairing all the bits that are falling apart (or have been purposefully _taken_ apart). While Emily wishes for the comfort of her rooms at the Tower.

“Again, I won’t let the Duke get his claws on you,” Emily says, scowling. Wondering how exactly to phrase her next words to put a permanent end to this discussion.

“He won’t,” Jindosh dismisses. “This isn’t the first time I’ve disappeared on the man, nor the first time I’ve kicked everyone out of the house in a fit of pique. Luca wants his soldiers so badly he’ll put up with a lot of excuses before he actually makes an appearance at my home demanding answers. So many orgies, so little time, you see. And before he does manage to let his cock dry long enough to do something about it, I’m sure you’ll have dealt with him as you see fit.”

“It’s the Grand Guard showing up that has me concerned, not Abele.” And wow, Emily could’ve done without _that_ mental image.

“Well, obviously, they’ll show up. I am the Grand Inventor after all, and they were tasked with guarding my home. Dismissing them completely will be far too suspicious, but they can be confined to the main hall on some excuse.” Jindosh gives her a thin sort of smile. “You were plenty capable of avoiding their clumsy attempts at stopping you from wandering freely through my home the first time, I’m sure it’ll be a cakewalk this time.”

Emily scowls at him. “Oh yes, ignoring the countless times your house’s clockwork mechanisms nearly crushed me, the whole experience was ease itself.”

“I did tell you to stay out of there.”

In all honesty, she hadn’t meant to sneak behind the walls. It was a last-minute hiding spot to avoid a patrol that made her open a window she thought was going to lead her to the outside of the building. However, by then, Emily was so turned around by the shifting mechanisms that she didn’t realize that she wasn’t near a _real_ window until she was behind the wall. 

“Shall I also list the things you’ve forbidden me doing concerning your personal safety or communication with anyone connected to Delilah?” Jindosh asks, annoyance in his voice. “You’ve covered most of the bases, and I have little doubt you’ll think of a dozen other things to put on that list, much to my chagrin.” He gives her a pointed look. “I need my laboratory, and you need my skills. The choice seems clear.”

As arguments go, it’s compelling, but she’s still hesitant to put herself in a situation that’s far less simple to control. 

“… I’ll think about it.”

///

By the time she talks with Sokolov and Megan about the situation the next morning, Emily has already made up her mind. Even so, she knows that it never hurts to get a second opinion. Megan is immediately against it, and Sokolov is thoughtful.

“I don’t care if you could order him to slice his own throat, you’re at a serious disadvantage in his home,” Megan says with a frown, folding her arm across her chest. “It’s foolish to consider this, even if it does get that man off my ship.”

“I agree with Megan,” Sokolov says, “but I have little doubt that you’ve already given thought to those points and hundred others. At the same time, Kirin’s argument is sound. He isn’t as great a use to you on this ship as he would be with access to all his resources.” Sokolov ruminates quietly for a few moments before offering, “In the end, the question is: does the benefit outweigh the risk?”

Emily has always been fond of risk. Risk is exciting and gets her blood pumping. Every time she hops between rooftops or balances on the edge of a railing, there’s the risk that she’ll plummet to the ground. Perhaps that’ll mean her death. Perhaps that’ll mean something worse. But it’s the risk of failure, ultimately leading to a success that is a rush she can’t live without. A rush that she used to long for in every stifling and boring meeting with the Prime Minister at Legislature. At every tedious party where she was required to dance with dignitaries and pretend like she cared about whale oil prices, and silver mines, and shipping forecasts. At every political function where she was dragged out as a showpiece for the nobles and the rich to fawn over.

Of course, Emily knows now that if she had cared about those things, she would’ve been more attuned to the nuances of the Empire politics and seen Abele plotting against her months ago. Perhaps years. Then Delilah wouldn’t have been able so cockily walk into _Emily’s_ throne room and declare herself the rightful heir. Even now, having to run all over Karnaca to disrupt Delilah’s allies and discover a means of defeating her, Emily finds excitement in it, underneath all the anger, fear, guilt, and grief.

As Jindosh’s skiff motors away from _The Dreadful Wale,_ moonlight glittering off the water, she considers again the risk this venture is and just how much it requires her to trust Jindosh. Despite her ability to direct him as she pleases, Emily doesn’t know his mind nor how he might twist his actions to slip around her previous commands. It feels like walking into a trap simply because there’s a bit of glorious cheese just waiting to be had if she’s careful enough and quick enough to avoid the snapping spring. 

They discussed a plan for getting back to Jindosh’s mansion briefly before they left, or rather Emily wanted a plan, and Jindosh waved her off with, “I’m Grand Inventor, that’s the plan. Oh, don’t fret so much, Kaldwin, it’ll give you wrinkles,” and how she hates this man. However, true to his assertion that being the ‘Grand Inventor’ was enough, they waltz through Lower Aventa District with no problem. 

The veteran in charge of this part of the district dispatches a guard to Upper Aventa the moment he catches sight of them. Jindosh greets the man politely enough as they stop in front of the Wall of Light, but with that imperious undertone of a man, who knows he’s the smartest and wealthiest person in any given place. It grates on her nerves, just the same is it did when anyone employed it in her court. However, in short order, the Wall is temporarily deactivated to allow them passage. Though the guards eye her suspiciously as they head up to the platform, Jindosh doesn’t mention her save to say that they are returning to his mansion.

Sometimes the best way to avoid talking about something is to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Like the blood-stained holes in her coat and clothing.

The carriage stops in Upper Aventa so that Jindosh can speak with the Lieutenant, and have his contingency of guards restored to his home. During the slow climb up the steep rail, Emily clearly and precisely forbade him from making any pleas of help to the guard or mentioning why he left in the first place. Something dark glittered in his eyes as she made this command, but he obeyed (talking confidently with the Lieutenant) and the tightness in her chest that’s been holding her captive since they began this trip eases somewhat. When they finally arrive at the mansion, no less than an hour after they left _The Dreadful Wale,_ Jindosh eagerly climbs out of the carriage as Emily follows somewhat more sedately carrying a borrowed leather bag full of her weapons and traps. 

Their second carriage glides to a halt behind them, and the clockwork soldiers it carried leap the short distance from the track to the platform, landing heavily behind them as they ascend the stairs. The carriages’ signal bells’ ring, echoing loudly off the stone edifice of the house as they zing back along the track, ready to carry Jindosh’s complement of guards to their posts.

At the front door, Jindosh pulls open the nameplate to reveal a unique locking mechanism. He dials words and pictures, seemingly at random, until the telltale sound of a locking mechanism disengaging is heard, and the dials on the lock spin themselves into another random assortment as Jindosh closes the plate. As he opens the heavy door, Jindosh lets out a sound of relief and quickly makes his way across the antechamber to fling open the doors of the foyer. 

He pulls the room’s switch to reveal what is hidden by the clockwork walls. He walks with light ease around the opening sections of the floor, not at all worried about a misstep taking him to the inner workings where some grisly end awaits. Emily follows his steps as precisely as she can and eyes the whole place with the same mix of amazement and distrust that she did the first time.

Waiting for them at the bridge entrance is a sharply dressed servant, _despite_ the fact that she told Jindosh to evacuate everyone from the household. Judging from his manner and outfit, Emily guesses he’s the butler. 

“Welcome home, Master Jindosh,” the man says, eyeing Emily for a moment before returning his attention to Jindosh. “Is there anything you require?”

“A bath, Burton. I am unspeakably filthy,” Jindosh replies as he opens the doors to the lab and pulls the switch to extend the bridge—the warm air of the night whooshing in through the doors and ruffling their clothes.

“Certainly. And your…companion?”

“She needs quarters. Either down in the servants’ rooms or in my neglected master suite. Whatever you think suits our lately deposed Empress.”

Emily gapes at him a moment, caught off guard by him freely dropping her identity and then reels into anger as Jindosh chuckles—getting an inordinate amount of delight out of outing her like that. Burton’s eyebrows raise, but in a testament to his professionalism, that’s his only reaction.

“I think, sir, that the master suite is more appropriate.”

“Yes, yes. Whatever you think is best,” Jindosh replies with a dismissive wave and then turns his attention to the clockwork soldiers following them. “Unit 18 report to the laboratory for maintenance. Unit 23, report to bay 5 for standby mode.” The soldiers give their confirmations and disperse as instructed, with Jindosh following the one into his lab.

“If Her Imperial Majesty will follow me,” Burton says and leads her through the now deactivated Wall of Light into the area marked ‘Private.’ As she tugs down the scarf covering her face (what’s the point of it now?), Emily thinks she might strangle Jindosh when he’s finished with her armour. 

“Aren’t there any guest rooms?” she asks, scowl on her face and not in the least bit comfortable staying in Jindosh’s room, regardless of how often he doesn’t use it.

“Master Jindosh doesn’t have guests, he has patrons and clients.”

That throws her for a second. “…None? In a house this size?”

“The mechanisms that make the rooms shift and rearrange take up a good deal of space. It was deemed unnecessary.”

Emily raises a skeptical eyebrow at that because it sounds less like a need to conserve space and more like a declaration of intent. As if Jindosh is saying to someone, “You’re not welcome here. All this space and I have none for you.” Admittedly, there’s a part of her that likes the idea of having no room to spare. There are many pompous nobles would she have dearly loved to deny rooms in Dunwall Tower.

In the master suite, the room’s swivel mechanism is in the same space as the portrait studio. The large windows capture the natural light, and Emily frowns at the skeletal legs of the clockwork soldier as they glint the sun. She sets her case down at the edge of the stationary platform and then pulls the switch to bring up the bedroom part of the suite. 

Burton makes a noise of exclamation as the portrait studio spins away with him in it, and Emily calls out to him that she’s okay. After a few moments alone in the new space (during which she can tell how keenly she reeks of sweat and blood and dirty streets), Burton appears from a cleverly concealed servants’ entrance that peels back like a lady’s fan before closing seamlessly behind.

“It seems Ma’am has gained a quick grasp of the clockwork mechanisms,” Burton says dryly as he approaches.

“Ma’am has visited here before,” Emily replies somewhat mockingly and then frowns at herself. 

If anything, this experience has taught her the value of her throne and her life at Dunwall. Yet here she is, treating her title with reflexive disdain, and she hasn’t even gotten it back yet.

Burton seems unfazed by her words and takes a moment to peer more closely at her, “Ah, yes. That coat. You tested the mechanisms a couple weeks ago, after which Master Jindosh closed the house up.”

Emily nods. If that’s all he’s going to say on the matter, so much the better. However, in case the man feels inclined to speak further on the topic, she changes it. “I didn’t want to look at that…in the other room.”

“Quite. Is there anything I can get for you? Food perhaps? Tea?”

Her stomach rumbles at the mention of food, it’s long past supper now, but Emily ignores that and faces Burton full-on, letting her voice go cold and flinty as she says, 

“You’ve taken my presence here in stride, but I warn you now if the Grand Guard gets wind of my location, the ensuing chaos won’t be pleasant. You and all the servants in this house will be caught in the crossfire, and I doubt they’ll care to miss you should be in an inopportune position. I will not allow your master to fall back under Abele’s influence, even if that means I must cut down a dozen men and clockwork soldiers to put my blade to his throat.”

Burton gives her a long look before saying with gravitas and just a hint of offence, “I can assure you, Ma’am, that the secrets of this house go with us our graves,” and oh, the secrets this man must know. Emily nods in acceptance of that. “And if in your quest to get your throne back, you… _depose_ our esteemed Duke, no one in Karnaca will mourn his loss.” Burton quirks his lips. “Indeed, Royal Inventor has a much better ring.”

She almost snorts at that. _Of course._ Only a man as ambitious as Jindosh would manage to tolerate him for any length of time. “As does, Butler to the Royal Inventor, I imagine.”

“Certainly.”

It is unlikely that Jindosh will be allowed anywhere near her capital, much less be granted such a title. However, without the context of the electroshock machine, it seems like a logical motivation for helping, and if Burton keeps mum out of ambition, that suits her just fine. 

“Then, we have an understanding. Good.” She strips off her coat, tossing it to the polished wood floor as her clothing is practically caustic at this point, and she doesn’t want to get its grime on any of the furniture. “Since I doubt there’s a miracle that can salvage that or anything I currently am wearing, will you please find the time to burn them.”

“As you wish.”

“And I’ll need two new outfits of a similar design. Please keep a detailed list of the cost so that I may reimburse Jindosh when I return to Dunwall.”

“Certainly. I’ll have Dayna collect your measurements and your soiled clothes. Shall I have a bath drawn for you in the meantime?”

“That would be lovely,” Emily sighs, feeling the exertion of the day catch up to her. She hasn’t had a hot bath in ages, and her muscles could use the relief, but remembering Jindosh’s earlier words, she asks, “Is there another bath I might use?”

“There are no others that are appropriate for a lady of your station. I’m certain Master Jindosh will understand,” Burton replies with a small smile and Emily thinks that she’d going to get on with the staff just fine.

The tub is deep, the water just a shade too hot, and it’s utterly fantastic. The only unfortunate thing about it is that the oils and soaps are scented for a man instead of the subtle floral fragrances she prefers. It’s a small thing compared to getting truly clean for the first time in a month and a half, and the tray of delicate sandwiches a servant girl brings is delightful. When she asks if Emily needs help bathing, she declines the offer, preferring to slowly roast in the hot water as her muscles loosen from the myriad of abuse they’ve suffered as of late. 

In fact, the whole experience gets downright perfect when Jindosh enters the bathroom, already down to his shirtsleeves, and sees her enjoying his bathtub before him. The look of outrage that slides across his face before he turns smartly on his heel and leaves is utterly exquisite. Outside the door, Emily can hear him yelling for Burton, and she grins into her sandwich quarter.

///

The journey to Jindosh’s mansion took more out of Emily than she thought it would, and after her bath, she quickly falls asleep, slipping immediately into The Void. At first, it doesn’t seem to be all that bad as she wanders from rock to rock, gazing out into the shifting grey all around and appreciating the harsh beauty of the place as a whale swims by in the background. 

Then, she stumbles upon a horrific sight. A gleeful human sacrifice being performed in a chanting language that she doesn’t know, as a man begs for mercy. She pulls back immediately, frightened, disgusted, and infinitely too curious for her own good, and wakes panting and sweating in the fresh bedding. 

After a moment, she tosses the covers off with a snarl and stiffly stands. One of the servants lent her a nightgown to sleep in place of wearing one of Jindosh’s shirts (for which she’ll forever be grateful for), but it’s too small across the shoulders and thighs for Emily’s muscles and constricts as she tries for more rapid movement. Right now, she needs freedom of movement. 

With a longing look at the bed, Emily decides now is an excellent time to spy on the Grand Guard. She needs some useful intel on what’s been happening while she’s been holed up on the _Wale._

The same servant that lent Emily her nightgown, also left out one of Jindosh’s dressing gowns for her to wear over it while she waited for her new clothing to arrive. It’s a dark thing with subdued greens and golds in it and more substantial than she thought necessary for a city with such warm weather. She protested at first it being set out, but the girl assured her it was freshly washed and practically brand new. Now, Emily exchanges her too-small gown for the robe instead, and before she sets off to spy on the Grand Guard, she swipes her notebook and pen from the bedside table.

Shortly before the guards arrived, Burton reactivated the mansion’s two Walls of Light and used the chargers attuned to them to allow Emily free access in and out. The Grand Guard _does not_ have the same privilege, and apparently, they never did. Jindosh doesn’t like anyone wandering into his spaces, regardless of their reasons for being in the house. Not that she’s about to walk willy-nilly past the Wall since that will lead her smack dab into the middle of guard patrols as Jindosh has temporarily ‘decided’ to cease his challenge to would-be thieves. No. She must be a little more cunning than that. 

Emily slides through the servants’ entrance that Burton used earlier and into the passage behind the walls. It’s different than the ones she travelled through to get to Jindosh initially and infinitely safer. There are no exposed gears for garments to get caught on, no likelihood of shifting walls crushing someone. She imagines that she’ll be able to travel about the entire mansion, carefully hidden from the guards.

The only downside is that in these passages, there are no faux windows for one to watch the goings-on of the house, except for a small peephole where the passage opens into the main house. So Emily will have to duck into the more dangerous areas of the mansion’s clockwork mechanisms to spy effectively.

From the servants’ passage, it’s easy enough to listen for a passing guard patrol, their footsteps practically thunderous compared to her bare feet. When she’s confident that they’ve gone by and are no longer able to see the entrance (using the dark vision granted by the Mark), Emily steps from the servants’ passage and moves across the hall. At one the atrium’s faux window, she slips behind the walls, careful to keep the dressing gown tucked close as it’s a bit too long for her, and she’s wary of it getting caught.

The windows are a great place to stop and listen, and she opens one just a crack to allow the sound to travel freely. Then, she settles on the floor below and makes her notes. Most of it is rubbish, useless bits of gossip about fellow guards or annoyances at certain Lieutenants. After the guards move on in their patrol, Emily too secrets on, whisper-quiet. The main floor windows that she has access to yield nothing of interest, but the stealthy movement and observation are good reconditioning for her muscles to get her back into the smooth motions of a month before, though the exertion quickly drains her.

She uses her Far Reach to get up to the level above, near the billiard table, and moves to the waiting room. From what she’s gathered, this is a bit of favourite area of the guards. They like to hang out in it because it serves as an elevator to the lower level, near the kitchen. 

Emily knows that the mechanisms in the house are monitored by Jindosh, but she believes that’s only when he knows that someone is sneaking about the house. The guards have no compunction about shifting the room on breaks to have easy access to the kitchen. Perhaps they have free run of that room, but somehow that doesn’t strike her as something Jindosh would be peachy-keen with. Still, it’s rather fun riding on the top of the room as she listens in through the skylight, lying just out of sight.

Here she learns some interesting things about Duke Abele as one of the guards is lately off rotation at the palace and has no problem complaining about the man and his treatment of the people in his employ. The other hot topic of discussion among the guards is Emily herself. They find the fact that Jindosh has a long-term guest strange, and they speculate on who it could possibly be, naming several nobles that Emily assumes Jindosh has slept with at one point or another judging from the comments. 

The fact that her presence is so out of the norm concerns her. If these guards rotate out of this assignment and get one at the palace or Karnaca’s Assembly, then it’s likely that somewhere along the way that the Duke will hear about it. He may not inquire in person, not at first. Though Jindosh can’t speak of her to anyone associated with Delilah (which is how he got away with telling Burton), the dissembling that would need to go into avoiding talking about her would be just as telling as the truth.

So that leaves two options. Either Emily needs to push the timetable as far and as fast as it will go concerning her recovery and Jindosh’s current project so that she’s knocking at the Duke’s door before he has the chance to knock at theirs. Or come up with a plausible explanation for her presence for when Abele’s inquiry does come that neatly skirts actually talking about her and thus avoiding the previously mentioned problem. The stitch in her side from crawling around the walls and the fatigue caused by this simple operation has ruled out the first option—even with the health elixirs, her healing is slow. That leaves the second. 

Emily waits until the waiting room is returned to the main level and then leaves the guards to their gossip as she heads back through the corridors behind the walls. As she jumps down near the piano, the edge of the dressing gown catches on a bent piece of bent metal trim. Emily hears the rip of fabric and swears under her breath for forgetting to keep it tucked close, giving the two-inch gap quick look and a frown before gathering the robe up and moving on. When she reaches the master suite, Emily tosses the notebook and pen on the bed and considers curling back up on the mattress to sleep. However, her feet are filthy from wandering around barefoot behind the walls, the dressing gown is covered in dust. Before she even considers falling into her Void dreams again, Emily must clean up first, and before that, she should speak with Jindosh. 

Just to make it perfectly clear that if he’s waiting for Duke Abele to sweep into this place with two dozen elite guards at the ready, she’s already one step ahead, and making all the appropriate considerations. And though she’d rather not admit it, she would prefer to talk to Jindosh than chance another nightmare. That doesn’t say much about his company, but then there really isn’t much good about it anyway.

After adjusting the robe, picking up her prepacked pipe, and the pack of matches next to it (the moment she laid eyes on it, she had a craving), Emily heads out the doors to the hall leading to the first floor of the laboratory. Jindosh is at one of the far bays, his damaged clockwork soldier partially apart and hanging from a hoist, as he works on sharpening one of the blades on a large stone. 

On the table of the bay closest to the door, there's a smattering of papers. They show a breakdown of the individual parts of the corselet he’s designed based on her drawings. Emily pauses to look through them, lighting her pipe, and liking what has so far come together. Once through them all, she heads further in. She stops when she’s about 4 feet behind him. The same metallic music from before is playing softly from the room’s loudspeakers and covering the light sound of her footfalls and rustle of the dressing gown. 

“Jindosh,” she says delicately, trying not to scare him in case he injures himself with the blade in surprise, and she ends up with _another_ delay. 

He starts slightly before the lines of the shoulder tense with anger, but he doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he leans back and looks up at the glass dome overhead. Emily follows his gaze and notes with some surprise that there’s a giant clock set into the dome, offering a mostly unobstructed view of the stars beyond. 

“It’s late,” he says and goes back to his sliding the blade along the sharping stone. Emily has to shift to line herself up with the clock properly to read it right, but after a moment determines it’s a little after 4 a.m.

Emily moves around to his left, putting the bay’s side table between them. “I was eavesdropping on the guards,” she tells him, taking a draw from her pipe and ignoring his comment about the time. Jindosh hums in acknowledgement. “Did you know they congregate around the Waiting Room? They like using it to get access to the kitchens.”

He gives her a smirk that flickers and becomes tight when he sees what’s sees wearing. 

“And I see you’ve been wandering around behind the walls in my brand-new dressing gown. Let me guess you were listening in from the skylight? Burton’ll be irate when he hears they’ve been ignoring his demands to leave Crossley’s pastries alone.” 

Emily can tell he’s trying for his usual snarkiness, but he just sounds tired and stressed. She feels a spark of sympathy for him.

“Maybe the Kitchen needs a Wall of Light then,” Emily replies flippantly, and Jindosh snorts. “They were talking about me and the strangeness of you having a guest.”

“And?”

“And they’ll take that chatter with them on every assignment from here to the Grand Palace. Considering what has happened to that…grim version of Doctor Hypatia and then Ashworth’s account of my involvement to the Overseers, coupled with you stalling on your delivery of the clockwork army, I imagine Abele will put two and two together before I’m ready to deal with him. But, perhaps that’s what you wanted?”

Jindosh checks the edge of the blade for sharpness before setting it down on the table and turns to face her, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “This may come as a surprise, but I just can’t seem to muster much concern for your safety. You’ve made sure I can’t disclose your presence here, but if you can’t keep the secret from spilling before you’re ready, that isn’t my problem.”

Emily scowls at him. “I could very easily make it your problem. Especially, since you’ve committed treason by supporting Delilah in her coup.”

“You think your reign’s frightening lack of authority in the Isles concerns me?” Jindosh jeers. “I know that the time of the Imperial throne, the monarchy, and the duchy, are rapidly drawing to a close. This is the dawning of an age of enlightenment where the brilliant will shape and mold the things to come.” 

Emily notes the slight shake that his hands have when he pulls them from his pockets to gesture with. 

“Should you somehow manage to defeat Delilah and return to the throne, your power, like hers, will continue to be an elaborate masquerade. Parliament holds the Isles' true power, and between the two of us, _Your Imperial Majesty_ , I’m more valuable.”

“If that’s the case, Jindosh,” Emily bites out, rethinking her belief that this would be preferable to nightmares, “then why did you aid her?”

“Aid?” Jindosh laughs, a slightly wild edge to his voice. “I haven’t given my aid to anyone. My time and my mechanisms have all been purchased in one form or another. I have no allegiance to Delilah or her revenge crusade; I never did.”

“Then why won’t you help me? Why must everything be a fight?” she snaps, frustrated.

“Because you haven’t offered me anything other than perpetual _servitude,_ ” Jindosh snarls, mood turning suddenly. “Were the circumstances different, I can assure you that I would happily watch Delilah run your precious Empire into the _ground_ before I ever choose to _aid_ you for nothing.”

A hundred spiteful words crowd in her throat, just waiting to spill forth in the verbal equivalent of a dam’s spillway, but somehow Emily clamps down on them all takes a breath, uncurling her hands from where they’ve formed into fists. As much as she hates the way Jindosh has made his point, he _does_ have one. This is precisely what Sokolov was trying to prevent when he told her that finding an alternate way of getting what she wanted from Jindosh was in her best interest. 

“Alright,” she concedes angrily. “What do you want?”

There’s a moment where Jindosh watches her, uncertainty and…something else she doesn’t have a name for on his face. Then he slides his still trembling hands back into his pockets and schools himself into neutrality. “My Master's of Engineering.”

Emily sighs, a hiss of breath that conveys every bit of her frustration and ire. She takes a draw off her pipe and blows out the smoke to give her a moment to collect herself. “If you think my power and influence among the Isles is weak, then you don’t understand how little the Academy cares about the Throne or Parliamentary legislation.”

“Oh, I know, and I can only imagine the sort of concessions you’ll have to make, but that’s my price.”

“And if I don’t choose to pay for it?”

He gives her a cold, dark look. “You can’t account for all the variables of a command, and one day it’ll be your downfall.”

///

As a child, Dunwall Tower often felt like a gloriously gilded cage in which she was the colourful bird stuck within its confines, forever waiting for that moment to fly free. When she got older, it became less of a cage and more of a chain tied to her leg, always holding her down, holding her back from the things she loved to do. 

Staying in Jindosh’s Clockwork Mansion has all the charm of that same chain, coupled with the home’s apparent desire to trap her in a never-ending swirl of shifting walls. And a host of guards all too eager to cut her down should she make herself known. Emily promises herself that she won’t take The Tower for granted again. 

Nor the freedom to wander the rooftops as she pleases. 

Jindosh and Emily don’t speak for two days after he named his price. Not that it’s hard for her to avoid him, or him her. Thus, they haven’t agreed on a story to tell should Abele come calling before she’s ready. Nor has she decided if she should agree to Jindosh’s terms. 

Her new clothes arrive on the third day, along with some things that she hadn’t asked for and is grateful for Burton’s forethought. Like an adequately sized nightgown. That afternoon, Jindosh asks her to the laboratory for her measurements. She wears exactly what she would, all layers and various accoutrements included to ensure a proper final fit, and Emily takes Jindosh’s silence as approval since she images that he would loudly vocalize anything less. Though, there isn’t much vocalization on either of their parts during the process. While Emily really can’t be bothered to say anything other than what is immediately required in any situation involving Jindosh unless needled, she’s surprised he doesn’t have several neatly cutting barbs to throw her way. 

However, considering the deplorable state she finds him in, perhaps she shouldn’t be. 

The tremor in his hands, she noticed the other night, has only gotten worse, and every time he must scratch out a number because it’s illegible, the angrier he gets. Jindosh looks haggard and worn like he’s hasn’t slept right for a week or more and looks to be unshaven for a couple days, at least. 

Emily’s little concerned. She’s seen firsthand the sort of frenzy Sokolov sinks into while in the middle of a project, scarcely eating or sleeping until he’s finished (her chamber’s secret room a prime example). However, the state Jindosh is in seems to be something he’s working _through_ and not something that the work is a cause of. 

As he measures the length of her back, she asks, “Are you feeling alright?”

There’s a long moment of silence before Jindosh bites out, “I’m not sleeping well.” 

Well, that much is obvious. 

“If you sleep during the day, it might help. I find... Well, it’s just that...” she trails off and huffs slightly in annoyance at herself. For some reason, it’s hard to talk The Void out loud like this. “...It doesn’t find me in the daylight,” she finishes lamely, hoping he gets the gist. 

Jindosh stills for the briefest second. “I’ll...try that,” and Emily nods.

There’s another long stretch of silence that lasts them until he’s finished taking her measurements. Emily watches as he sorts through the pattern’s rough draft to make sure that he has all the measurements that he needs. He gives her a short nod to indicate that everything is in order and starts laying out large sheets of heavy paper to make the actual pattern on. 

“I’ve given your...request some consideration,” she says, and Jindosh pauses in his work to look at her, a spark flaring in his otherwise dull eyes. “In exchange for the work you have done and will do to better facilitate Delilah’s downfall, full disclosure on all information in your dealing with her, Abele, Stilton and anything else that might be of help (no more conveniently leaving out ‘there’s an entire coven of witches just waiting to kill you’ and the like), and ceasing all work on your clockwork soldiers—” here Jindosh gives her a narrow-eyed look “—until I’ve decided what to do with them, I will get you your Master’s of Engineering. Through legitimate channels. I imagine you don’t want it given to you out of bribery on my part; that would rather depreciate its value.” 

“Obviously.” 

“Are we agreed then?”

“Your word then, that you’ll do this?” He seems highly suspect, and she can’t help the flare of offence that causes in her.

“You doubt my word?”

“Wouldn’t you if circumstances were reversed?”

Emily frowns but nods because she would. “Though considering the alternative, there isn’t much you can do about it.”

“More than you think.” Jindosh leans on the table, splaying his hands flat and stopping their shake for the moment. “I want my soldiers' given fair consideration. I’ll make the case personally if that’s what it takes.” 

She considers for a moment, imagining the outraged nobility that would storm the Tower if she didn’t. “...Agreed.” 

“Then, I accept the terms.”

Emily holds out a hand, and they shake on it. She can feel the tremors and wonders if she should have a word with Burton about bringing a doctor by. Whatever this is, it can’t be good for his health. She just hopes that whatever it is, hasn’t been caused by her. Bloodfly fever would be preferable to finding out that her little electrotherapy has permanently damaged something beyond just a portion of Jindosh’s free will. 

She mentions to Dayna that she’d like to talk with Burton when the girl brings by Emily’s dinner that evening. Later, as she’s finishing her meal, Burton stops, and Emily tells him what she witnessed that afternoon. 

“Is that normal behaviour for him? I know that Sokolov and Joplin were often recalcitrant, to the point of driving everyone off, when inventing and often ignored all normal meals and sleep, so perhaps it just Jindosh’s means of working. It’s just that something doesn’t seem quite right.”

“Well, I’m afraid that we don’t often see Master Jindosh during such...frenzies as we aren’t allowed in the laboratory, and he never did sleep much, to begin with. Though, I must admit that the tremors you mentioned are worrisome.” 

“It’s more than just that. If you saw him, I’m sure you’d agree. His whole continence is wrong. Is he eating?”

“As much as he ever does,” Burton replies and Emily hums in acknowledgement; Jindosh strikes her as man continually on the thin side of healthy. “If you wish, I’ll send for a doctor in the morning. Though, you’ll have to...coax him out of the laboratory, Ma’am.” 

“I can manage that, Burton. Thank you.”

That night, Emily wanders about the interior walls as is her want, listening to the guards. She has decided to take matters into her own hands and leave little notes scattered here and there for the guards to find to fuel the idea that she’s some noble that Jindosh has taken a fancy too. They all seem to have glommed on to the design, and Emily has plenty enough experience with Morley slang that it’ll keep the guards' plenty distracted trying to figure out what house she hails from. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to keep everyone off her tail long enough for her to take out Abele and be on her way back to Dunwall before anyone thinks to look too closely.

When she’s too exhausted to keep from falling asleep as she leans against the wall where she’s eavesdropping, Emily heads back to the master suite and crawls into bed. She’ll likely only get a few hours of sleep before some Void vision frightens her awake, but that should keep her going until sunrise for a proper rest. 

Except, she never makes it to The Void. 

Or perhaps she does, but instead of a Void nightmare waking her, the high and sharp sound of smashing glass and metal jolts her awake with heart-stopping clarity. Emily vaults out of bed, grabs her father’s sword from the bedside table, yanks her new nightgown up around her thighs, and sprints toward the crashing and banging sounds coming from the laboratory, blade unfurling and as she goes. 

Emily stumbles to a stop, heart racing and ready for a fight, a hundred different things racing through her head from malfunctioning clockwork soldiers to Abele’s guard crashing into the lab, but what she finds is Jindosh taking a sledgehammer to his electroshock machine. Smashing the delicate ceramic and copper coils, the glass tubes, the circuitry inside the box; none of it is spared, and for a moment, she’s absolutely speechless. Then, she slides into anger because this has undoubtedly alerted the whole _fucking_ house. 

“Stop!” she barks, her grip on the sword tight. Jindosh’s swing finishes its momentum, lodging the head of the hammer into the main box, but it stays there, his hands shaking on the shaft. “What the fuck are you doing?” she hisses in the sudden quiet. 

“Destroying it,” Jindosh answers languidly in what must a side effect of his compulsion to obey because his chest heaves from the exertion of swinging the sledgehammer. He lets his hands fall back to his sides. 

“ _Why?_ It’s the middle of The Outsider damned night, and I’m sure the guards, the staff, fucking Abele himself heard you smashing this thing.”

“So, you’d order me to stop.”

Emily is certain there’s a very unflattering look of surprise on her face. “ _What?_ ” she sputters.

“I needed you to tell me to stop,” Jindosh repeats, tone hateful and pleading at the same time. “You’ve avoided given me any orders for the last week, and I’m out of my mind because of it.” He starts laughing, wild and mirthless. “Command me to do something, _anything,_ before I decide that this humiliation is too much to bear and I jump off the lab’s balcony or mess with the friend-foe settings on a clockwork soldier. I promise you I am _this_ close visiting The Void permanently.”

She blinks at him a couple of times before letting the blade of her father’s sword slide back into the hilt. “Sit,” she tells him and nods at the cot set up on this level. Jindosh moves toward it with little fanfare, looking more and more relieved for every command she gives. “Something changed that afternoon on the Wale.” He nods. “Explain.” 

“He gave me a choice: my mind for my dignity. I didn’t realize I’d be reduced to this pathetic creature. I'd’ve preferred feeble-mindedness to this humiliation.”

No. _No._ “Who?” Emily croaks.

Jindosh just gives her a loathsome look, and in a flash, she’s grabbing his hands, turning them this way and that, yanking up his shirt sleeves to looking for it. “Where?! Where is it?” she demands sharply, and Jindosh pulls a hand free from her grasp to touch the back of his neck. She pulls his head down, twisting to see and _there,_ almost entirely covered by the short hair at the nape of his neck, is The Outsider’s Mark. Emily pulls back as if burned. 

“Empress Emily? Master Jindosh? Is everything alright?” Burton calls from the doorway of the laboratory leading to the master suite. Emily looks up and realizes the state of undress she’s in, nightgown still tucked up around her thighs and hair a mess. Oh, what a horrible bit of gossip this will make when she returns to Dunwall and her throne. 

“Just some late-night renovation, Burton,” she replies, voice carrying easily through the space of lab. “Why don’t you run Jindosh a bath? He’s doing a bit...poorly after that exertion.” 

“...Certainly. Will that be all?”

“Yes,” Jindosh snaps, and perhaps that was what Burton was waiting for, confirmation that Jindosh was still breathing because, in the next moment, Emily can hear him speaking in low, indistinct tones to the rest of the house’s staff. 

She spares Jindosh one last frown before snatching her father’s sword from where she’d dropped it moments before and turns to dash back to the master suite. No sleep will be had for her now, nor likely for the rest of the night. What she must do now is find the shrine in Lower Aventa that she visited some weeks ago. However, before she can leave the lab, Jindosh wraps a firm hand around her upper arm, stopping her.

“You can’t leave me like this,” he snarls, looking furious. “With this electric whine humming in my brain of a need I can’t satisfy. I can’t work like this. I can’t _live_ like this.”

“Take your hand off of me,” Emily tells him, deadly calm, and Jindosh’s hand falls as he sucks in a sharp, needy breath. “Have your bath a try to look presentable for the morning. After this fiasco, I doubt I’ll be able to convince Burton to hold off on calling a doctor. Perhaps I might be able to mitigate it by suggesting Hypatia, but let me make one thing clear, Jindosh: I can and will leave you this, or have you forgotten who commands who?”

As she heads down from the mansion’s entrance platform to the crumbling walkway below, Emily considers that heading out this late at night still not completely healed from her time at the Conservatory, in a frantic scrambling for a chat with The Outsider might not be her best idea. 

Not that that stops her.

///

She steals quietly into the carriage waiting at the Upper Aventa station. Apparently, the guards are secure in the knowledge that since the rail gate to Jindosh’s mansion is closed, there’s no reason to be especially vigilant, and they’re snoozing at their posts. It suits her needs just fine right now, but it makes Emily consider all the ways people are so terribly vulnerable in their daily lives to those that might wish them harm simply because they trust entirely too much.

The carriage speeds along the track and the wind from the mountain brings the sharp smell of sea salt as it whips her hair about. As the carriage slows to connect to the winch that will see it safely to the steep incline to Lower Aventa, Emily almost wishes that she could ride the track down unimpeded (anything to get her mind of this current situation). However, the winches function as it should, and Emily switches sides in the carriage to lie back against the angle of the hill. The stars are hidden tonight, the wind blowing enough dust from the mines, even this far west, to blot them out, and though she’s never considered herself superstitious, it somehow feels an omen of things to come.

As the carriage passes through the wind barrier, Emily readies her Far Reach. There’s a lamppost to the left of the track, and as the carriage passes, she reaches for it, knowing that getting caught arriving in the station won’t be good for her. She sails out of the carriage and makes it to the lamppost, but her boots slip, and her momentum carries her over the side, leaving Emily to scramble for purchase. 

Her hands catch the metal slats on top, preventing her from falling to the group, but she has to clamp down on a scream as the tender muscles of her still-healing slide pull and stretch violently with the weight of her dangling body. Emily isn’t sure if she tore something with that miscalculation, but she is convinced that she doesn’t have the strength to pull herself back up.

Frantically she looks for a safe place to land. The overgrown balcony to her left seems the best bet. She reaches for it, the magic pulling her through the distance and landing her precariously on the railing. Then, she tips forward and collapses in a heap on the floor of the balcony. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Emily chants in her mind as she tries to breathe through the hot, searing pain radiating from her side. She lays on the balcony for a while, continuing to silently curse, hot tears on her face and hating what her life has become. Hating herself for not appreciating what it was before, hating what she has yet left to do to get it back, and hating everyone associated with the mess. Sokolov and Megan included. 

When the pain has lessened to a dull throb that keeps time with her heart, Emily decides that her pity party has gone on long enough and chances standing. It _hurts._ It hurts enough that she’d rather lie back down and stay put, but the night is disappearing faster than she’d like and being caught out in the daylight in her current condition will mean the death of her. Bracing one hand on the railing, Emily uses her otherworldly sight to look for guards on patrol.

Most are clustered near the Wall of Light and the guard station on the opposite side of the street. She spots a few packing crates sitting in the street below her, most likely waiting for a luggage carriage in the morning, and Emily reaches for the spot behind them, landing in a crouch that makes her hiss and brace one hand on the ground. She reaches again for the alley behind her to make sure she’s well out of the line of sight of the guards and then sets about getting to the upper level of the dilapidated apartment building.

Emily has never visited a shrine without having nicked a whalebone rune from one place or another. She hears them sing often enough and is drawn to the tune they make for whatever reason. Bone charms don’t sing as loud, but she still hears them too, every once and a while. Hopefully, The Outsider will still speak to her without one. He’s done so before, after all. 

She kneels before the shrine, floor black with something she suspects is dried blood and waits. Closing her eyes, Emily attempts to concentrate on her breathing and not on the throbbing pain in her side that flares with every breath. After several tense minutes, time slows around her—she can hear it in the noise of the crickets and the wind as it drives at the breaks. Then, the blackness behind her eyes fractures and disappears as the endless Void sweeps up to take its place, like a sudden rush of water through a damaged dam.

“I wonder if I should be flattered by the urgency that drew you here, or annoyed that you’ve brought nothing with you,” The Outsider says, voice lazy. Emily looks up as he materializes on an outcropping of stone some ten feet away.

“The urgency of it caused my forgetfulness.”

He hums in agreement. “And made you forget just how fragile you yet are.” Emily nods in stiff agreement. “So, what could possibly be so urgent, Your Imperial Majesty, that you had to risk life and limb just to talk to me?”

“You know exactly why I’m here.”

The Outsider raises one mocking eyebrow. “I can think of several things pressing enough to talk about. Delilah, perhaps? Aramis Stilton? Luca Abele? Your crumbling empire?”

“Jindosh,” Emily bites out, trying to keep her calm. Lashing out at this being of terrible power will not be in her best interest.

“I thought we’d already discussed his fate.”

“Then you went and changed it.” _Without consulting me,_ unspoken at the end.

He moves then, a sudden speckling of ash, and appears just in front of Emily to walk a circle around her as he talks. “I’ve always liked philosophers, scientists, inventors—those that seek not just the knowledge already known, but that which has yet to be discovered. Most are worth watching as they fumble blindly in the dark, some finding greatness through chance, and the rest dimming like a comet streaking across the night sky. A few noteworthy ones are worth speaking to, but rarely are they worth a Mark.”

“And yet you gave him a Mark.”

The Outsider stops directly in front of her. “Yes.”

“Why?” she asks desperately. Of all the people in the world to give such a thing to! His mind was dangerous enough. 

As if reading her thoughts, The Outsider replies, “Not every gift brings destruction. Some stop it.”

Emily opens her mouth to question just what that _means,_ but The Outsider dissolves again and doesn’t reappear. Then, the Void collapses around her, and she’s thrown back into herself, the sharp pain in her side making itself fiercely known. She breathes steadily through her nose, trying to get the pain to a more tolerable level for her journey back to the Clockwork Mansion. Perhaps when she’s downed a vial or two of elixir, Emily might have the wherewithal to consider The Outsider’s words further.

Somehow, Emily manages to get back to the Clockwork Mansion without being seen. How exactly, she doesn’t know, but everything just slides into place perfectly, so perhaps it was The Outsider’s whim. Injured as she is, Emily is sure that she wouldn’t have made it back without His help.

Inside, it’s more complicated than she’d hoped to stay out of the guards’ notice. The shift has changed since she left, and those on duty are bright-eyed and not yet placated by the kitchen’s pastries and a few pints of beer from a barrel that Jindosh keeps full for them to distract them from their duty. Once she makes it into the servant’s access, Emily leans against the door and sags in pain. She’s sick with it and shaking from the exertion of making it back from Lower Aventa. 

As Emily stumbles along the corridor, arm wrapped about her middle, she chants the mantra, “Almost there, almost there, almost there,” to keep herself moving. Near the corridor to the master suite, Emily runs into Burton, and he immediately puts an arm around her to steady her. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Ma’am. What happened?”

“Just realized that I’m not quite as fit as I thought,” Emily pants. “I must lie down.”

“Of course,” Burton replies, already pulling her toward the master suite.

Gratefully, Emily lies down on the bed, after stumbling through the narrow door of the servant’s corridor.

“I’ll get you an elixir, Ma’am.”

“And some food,” Emily says, curling in on herself to stop the pain. “I won’t keep it down, otherwise.”

Burton disappears with a murmured words and Emily dozes in a haze of pain and exhaustion. By the Abby, what a complete idiot she’s been.

When Burton returns, he brings the elixir and Dayna, who has a small tray of biscuits and water. Emily chokes down the foul-tasting elixir and then a few biscuits and the water for good measure. Dayna disappears for a moment and returns with a bowl of cool water and a rag to wipe down Emily’s soaking skin. Bless her. Dayna would probably start helping her undress if Burton wasn’t still present, but Emily hasn’t yet dismissed him as they haven’t spoken about Jindosh.

“How is he?” she asks when she doesn’t feel like vomiting any longer.

“Poorly. I suggested rest and something to eat, but I suspect he has done neither.”

Emily nods. He might not even be capable of that at the moment, but she keeps that thought to herself. “In the morning, send word to Dr. Hypatia. She’s in the Dust District currently tending to the miners.”

“I thought that was just a rumour,” Dayna whispers with some surprise and Burton gives her a sharp look for speaking out of turn.

“It’s not. She’s there and is aware of Jindosh’s current…employment. She’ll come if you ask.”

“I will send word as soon as possible. For both of you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Burton gives her a faintly disbelieving look. “As you say.”

“The elixir will do its work long before she arrives. You’re dismissed, Burton, and thank you for your aid.”

“Think nothing of it, Ma’am,” Burton replies and silently leaves the room. 

Dayna helps Emily undress and slide back into the nightgown she clawed her way out of scare hours before. When she’s wrapped in it again, Emily crawls into bed and falls almost immediately asleep. Much like when she was gravely injured by Ashworth’s witches and recovering on _The Wale,_ Emily, mercifully, doesn’t dream of the Void.

The moment consciousness returns, sometime in the late morning, Emily's mind starts clicking over all the information The Outsider gave her, burning away like it’s powered by whale oil. She’s still tired, the healing of the elixir taking much of her energy, but she won’t get back to sleep now. After gingerly testing her range of movement and finding it lacking, but not as painful as the night before, she makes her toilet. Upon returning to the suite, Emily discovers that Dayna has brought a light repast for her. 

“In bed, Ma’am?” Dayna asks, waiting to arrange it for her.

Emily stares at the food and then looks longingly at the bed, before asking, “Has Jindosh eaten this morning?”

“We sent something for him.”

“So, no.” She sighs.

“I can’t say for sure, Ma’am. We don’t go in there, and the tray hasn’t been sent back down to the kitchen uneaten.”

“Please fetch the dressing gown, Dayna,” Emily says resignedly. She now understands what’s been going on with Jindosh and what she must do to help. It might as well start with breakfast.

While Dayna gets the dressing gown, Emily takes a seat on the bed. After she’s slides into the garment and ties it closed, Emily directs Dayna to follow her down the hall and into the lab. Dayna’s face goes slack at that, and it looks like she wants to say no, but Emily’s station clearly trumps Jindosh’s so she cannot. Emily wouldn’t blame her if she asked not to, but Burton would probably skin her alive for disobeying. 

The hall to the lab seems unbearably long since reinjuring herself last night, and Emily’s side is starting to burn by the time she pushes open the door (against Dayna’s protests, but one of them had to do it, and Dayna’s hands are full). Emily steps through the door and walks a few steps into the lab, but when she doesn’t hear Dayna’s quick steps behind her, Emily turns.

Dayna is staring at the floor in front of her, hesitating and clearly looking torn. Emily sighs, taking pity on her. “I will take full responsibility for you being in here, but please hurry, I don’t have the energy to stand much longer.”

That seems to jolt her out of indecision, and Dayna gives a little nod before stepping into the lab. 

After a quick glance around the main floor, it’s clear that there isn’t anyplace a place to sit and eat food, nor is Jindosh readily visible.

“Perhaps, upstairs, Ma’am?” Dayna offers, looking up at the railing above them. 

“Yes. Alright.”

Emily leads Dayna to the lab’s elevator, and they ascend to the second level. On the balcony ring, she spots Jindosh lying on a cot pushed against the wall, to the right of his desk. As they get closer, Emily breathes in the scent of tobacco smoke and notes the thin curl of smoke rising from Jindosh’s prosthetic. She points to the desk and Dayna hurries past her to set the tray down. 

“Have you eaten?” Emily asks as she takes in his appearance. He doesn’t look quite as wild as he did the night before, but he’s still clearly suffering. His body held tightly ridged even as he tries to relax. 

“No.” He frowns at Dayna as she hovers near the desk, wringing her hands now that they’re free of the tray. 

“Please fetch the tray that was sent up earlier, Dayna,” Emily says, and Dayna gives her a pained look. 

“I don’t—” she starts, and Jindosh interrupts her, voice rough.

“It’s on the other side of the desk, along the wall.”

Dayna turns and follows Jindosh’s instructions, a desperate sort of hurriedness to them, and Emily is sorry she asked the girl to do this for her. If she had been capable of carrying that tray herself, she would have. She’ll have to speak to Burton and make sure that Dayna doesn’t receive a reprimand for this and make sure Jindosh doesn’t flip out on her when he’s better. 

When the door of the dumbwaiter is opened, it pushes a covered tray forward from the depths of the small elevator and Dayna removes it before placing it on the desk as well. Then she turns to face Emily and Jindosh again. 

“Is there another chair around here?” Emily asks Jindosh.

“No.”

“Then, I’ll just have to sit in yours. Thank you, Dayna; you’re dismissed.”

Dayna drops a quick curtsy and almost runs from the balcony. When the sound of the elevator starts, Emily moves to the desk, taking a seat in the desk’s chair and pulling her breakfast tray to her. 

“Eat,” she tells him in a voice that brooks no argument and points at the covered tray. 

Jindosh almost immediately rises from the cot and retrieves the tray, leaving his still smoking prosthetic on the desk. “I’m not hungry,” he says, petulantly, but picks away at a few of the things when he sits back down again. 

Emily ignores that and says, “Hypatia is likely coming around later. Burton sent word to her this morning.”

“I’m not ill.”

“You are, but not in the conventional means.” Emily unfolds her napkin and places it in her lap before pouring a cup of coffee. “I went to a shrine last night,” she tells him as she stirs in some cream and sugar.

Jindosh gives her a sharp look as he tears apart a scone. “Did you prostrate for hours on end before He deemed you sufficiently meek to speak to?”

“Hardly.” Emily rolls her eyes. Did he have to be so insufferable? “If one is Marked, all you need is a rune. Though, I wouldn’t suggest calling Him for tea.”

“I suppose He told you all about my…condition, then?” Jindosh asks, mood utterly black.

“He said little on the subject, though considering all the previous meetings, I’m not surprised. The one thing He did say was a bit cryptic at the time, but I was in pain and not entirely coherent, so I didn’t understand what was meant until this morning.” Emily spreads some jam on her scone, hands shaking a little with nerves. 

It’s silly, she supposes after everything that she’s been through, but she’s frightened of what comes next. 

“When I made that machine work, it damaged your brain, didn’t it? And not in the way it was supposed to—not only anyway, and He gave you that Mark to stop it.”

“Yes.”

She knew he was going to say that, but Emily still closes her eyes at the confirmation. She wallows for a moment in loathing at her stupidity and selfishness before opening her eyes again to stare straight at Jindosh. “What do you need me to do?”

Jindosh’s gaze drops to his plate, a red flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. She hadn’t thought him capable of such a thing. This pains them both. “I already told you. I need commands.”

“That’s not very specific. Don’t you think if I had things I wanted you to do, I would have already said them?”

“Are you looking for permission to order me about like a servant?” Jindosh snaps, flush rising further. “Make me beg and scrap before you like some inbred lickspittle? I certainly won’t tell you that’s acceptable.”

“And if I don’t, we see what happens.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll jump,” Jindosh tells her, deadly serious.

“And if I order you not to?” Emily asks before sighing because, honestly, she’s not sure she could. “I’m not unfeeling, I hate this situation, too.”

“Do you?” he scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Void take you, Jindosh,” she snaps, anger flaring sharply in her. “As if I’m solely to blame for this situation. You’re the monster who created that thing in the first place. You’re the one who sided with Delilah. It was your clockwork monstrosities that _murdered_ every servant and visiting noble in Dunwall tower, on the anniversary of my _mother’s_ assassination. 

“You’ve gotten off exceedingly _light_ in the face of what you’ve helped bring to fruition.” She stands, shaking with anger and weakness. “Go ahead and jump. See if I lose a single wink of sleep over it.”

Her exit would have been so much more glorious if she could have managed to walk straight instead of hunched slightly over to avoid pulling on her tender muscles, and if Jindosh hadn’t stopped her by moving to grasp her arm like he had the night before. 

“Must I beg?” he snarls at her.

Emily looks from his hand to his face before she commands harshly, “Let go of me.”

His hand drops from her arm as he sucks in a greedy breath, mouth loosening from its twisted shape into a softer ’o’. Something is appealing about his reaction to that command, and it sparks a yet nameless thing in Emily. She turns to fully face Jindosh and tells him simply,

“Kneel.”

He drops to his knees, a rush of air escaping him and almost sounding like a sigh. Emily looks down on him and feels the need to straighten, even against her muscles’ protestations, so that she’s that much taller than him. Jindosh hardly towers over her, there is only a couple inches difference in their height, but the two and a half feet he lost by kneeling is glorious to her. 

The tension in his frame is slowly starting to bleed away; her two simple commands already have an effect, but more importantly is the _way_ Jindosh is looking at her. Silently begging for more in the way he refused to verbally. 

Emily grasps his chin, wishing to touch him, to exert that much more dominance over him, and says,

“Did you not wish to bow and scrap because you feel it’s beneath you, or because you didn’t want me to know how much you wanted it?”

A flicker of defiance crosses his face, and she finds that she likes that not every bit of fight has vanished in favour of obeying her. 

“If I could make you as miserable as I am—”

“Shhh,” Emily hushes him, letting go of his chin, and Jindosh clams up. It wasn’t precisely spoken with the same command as the previous two, but at this point, she believes he wants to obey badly enough for the sheer relief it provides. “Tell me what you know about Aramis Stilton,” she asks before she even realizes that this is the perfect moment to do just that.

“A miner who became a mine owner and tried too hard to fit in with the aristocracy. If he’d only bothered to tell Luca to fuck off, he’d still have his sanity.”

“He’s still alive, then.”

“Only in the barest sense of the word,” he replies, and something like regret flickers briefly on his face.

“Explain,” she commands sharply and Jindosh’s eyes hood.

“He’s a shell of a man, living out the last of his days in insanity. Luca quietly provides him with just enough care to keep him alive, so the miners don’t revolt.”

Emily frowns. The more she hears about Abele, the more she wants to run him through. “Where’s he being kept?”

“At his home to foster the illusion he’s become a shut-in. Which he is, but not willingly.”

“What happened to him?”

Jindosh’s face crumples together at that, and he looks in sudden pain. After a moment, he says, “I can’t tell you.”

“It wasn’t a request,” Emily replies and grabs his chin again to force him to look at her. “What happened?”

He visibly winces at that command, bringing his hand up to cradle his head. “It isn’t a matter of want,” he spits out, voice harsh with pain, “but a matter of a magical binding. If I could tell you, I would.”

Emily makes an annoyed sigh and releases him. Just like Hypatia couldn’t say either. “Fine, forget that command,” and Jindosh immediately relaxes. “Why doesn’t anyone know that Stilton is held against his will?”

“Well, for starters, he doesn’t have much will left these days.” Jindosh rolls his neck out, seemingly trying to chase away the previous pain. “And because one of my puzzle locks bars the entrance to his mansion, which also happens to be protected on three sides by massive windbreaks. It’s a fortress that only a few have access to. The official line is Bloodfly fever or the like.” He shrugs, seemingly uncaring, but Emily sees the slight frowning line of his mouth. 

“The miners hold out hope that Stilton will return to them like some prophesized Saviour and Luca uses that to keep them under his thumb. After all, no cares about them as long as the silver keeps flowing.”

Emily isn’t sure of that jibe is explicitly aimed at her or if she’s just feeling guilty about the accuracy of that comment, and it strikes her as more cutting than it was intended.

“I need the code for the lock,” she says.

“What? Now?” Jindosh replies with something close to outrage. “Not before…” he trails off with a frown.

“Before what?” Emily asks, eyebrow arching.

Jindosh’s frown deepens, but he answers, unwillingly. “I told you what you needed to know about Stilton. I should get something in return.”

“You are,” she replies, purposefully obtuse. “Your Master of Engineering. That was the agreement, yes?”

Emily watches his face pinch in anger, and while she does admit to liking that look far better than his usual smug superiority, the look he had before, the one that begged her to make him grovel and obey—that sparkling look of arousal, is his best look yet.

“Yes, that was,” he grits outs, “but that wasn’t what I…meant.” Jindosh stumbles over that last word, but Emily hears what he first intended to say.

She leans in a little, a smirk curling slightly in the corner of her mouth. “And what did you _want?_ ”

He colours with a mix of anger, shame, and arousal as he says, “You’ve talked me halfway into an erection, and I _want_ to finish.”

Emily’s eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, and she can’t help a glance downward. Nothing is evident, but perhaps that’s an after effect of the sharp pain from a moment before. Her gaze moves back up to his face, surprise smoothing out as a plan forms. 

“Then get on the cot, belly up.”

Jindosh sucks in a short breath of air, arousal flaring back to the forefront, and stands. She follows him to the cot, and as he spreads out on it, Emily frowns at herself for not thinking ahead and getting a chair for herself. The muscles in her side are not happy with her right now, but everything is already in motion. She considers the scene before her and decides to kneel at the head of the cot. It’s not ideal, but if she leans her weight on the square of space next to Jindosh’s head, it should help with the pain. 

His gaze tracks her as she settles, impatiently waiting. His hands can’t seem to stay still, tapping out a rapid staccato on the bedspread, and he’s as tense as a wolfhound on alert.

“Relax,” she commands, and like butter melting in a pan, his whole body goes lax. He sighs—a big breath of air that lets go of the last of his tension on the exhale.

Emily lets the moment hang, trying to decide how to go about it. She’s never had the opportunity to do something like this, and before them lies a precipice. They can’t go back from here, uncross this line that’s about to be crossed. Yet, she still moves forward, threading her left hand into Jindosh’s hair, grasping the longer strands on his crown, like a woman possessed. 

And in a sense, she is. Something’s has been discovered here in this short time frame that she didn’t realize was lurking in the dark parts of herself, and now that it’s been awoken, it _wants._

There’s a quiet groan from him as she tugs on his hair, testing. 

“Show me where you liked to be touched,” Emily says quietly, almost reverently. The harsh demands of before are out of place here now—that changed the moment she touched him with the intent to facilitate pleasure instead of pain. 

His hands move, one ghosting though the bits of hair that aren’t in Emily’s grip, then together they come to rest on his chest, hesitating only in that he isn’t sure how far to go, how much she wants him to bare. 

_All of it,_ she thinks, _Everything._ She pulls on his hair, forcing his head back to show off the long line of his throat, and she watches it work as his breath hitches. Jindosh’s unkempt and unshaven, far from his usual slickness, and its monument to how much control she has over him. 

“Pull it up,” she tells him, and Jindosh tugs his undershirt up, baring the expanse of his chest and stomach to her gaze. He’s hairy, dark and curled; much more than she’s used to, and that should make her pause—that single, flickering comparison to the only other man she’s seen naked—but it doesn’t. The thought disappears like so much smoke. 

The flat of his hands linger on his nipples, rubbing small circles. Emily reaches out with her fingers to stroke the length of his neck. She pauses at the bottom of his jaw, where the stubble is thickest, to feel his jumping pulse. 

Jindosh presses his neck into her fingers as his hand moves down, skimming across his ribcage and the hollow of his stomach. They stop at the button for his high-waisted trousers that are the fashion among men these days. A cut he wears well.

Now, the evidence that Emily lacked before is clearly on display; Jindosh’s cock is straining against his fly.

“Well?” she asks lowly, next to his ear. “Are you going to touch yourself, or should I just command you to come right now and let you make a mess in your expensive trousers?”

He lets out a surprised moan at that, stretching eagerly on the cot. After a moment, his hands move, plucking the button from its hole at the top of his trousers and then flicking the hook fasteners open down along the fly. His cock greedily filling the gap as it opens, contained only by the thin material of his pants. 

Jindosh doesn’t free his erection right away, but instead presses the heel of his hand down on it, slowly stroking back and forth, apparently teasing himself, and drawing out the anticipation. 

Emily uses her handle in his hair to turn his head toward her so that she can watch his face. His breath stutters on a half-choked moan as she tugs, his hand stopping and pressing down on his cock as his hips give a little jerk. His eyes are tightly closed against the sensation before they lazily open and look at her, hooded and blown wide. She eases her grip in his hair and stokes through it instead, letting the blunt edges of her nails run along his scalp. 

Jindosh shivers. 

It’s heady the way he’s so pliant and comfortable in her hands, and the whole situation has her soaking wet. As she is, Emily can’t get any friction, she just too awkwardly braced, and any attempt just sends pain shooting through the haze, so she just lets the ache of arousal linger untouched. It’s almost sweeter this way, and the orgasm will be better for having waited. 

Jindosh swallows thickly as his hand moves back from his cock. “Make me,” he says, voice ragged and rough. The sound is delicious to her, almost as much as the words themselves. 

Emily rakes her hand through his hair. “Take it out,” she says, almost stumbling over her word choice, wanting to say ‘cock’ but not quite having the courage. She feels silly for the hesitation, but this is so far outside her realm of normal. She’s moving forward by the drive of this new desire alone—her confidence had to falter somewhere along the way. 

Not that her word choice seems to matter much to Jindosh, who is only looking for the command and not caring the form it takes. He pulls his cock out from his pants, groaning quietly as it sits trapped between his stomach and the waistband before he shoves his trousers and pants down his hips far enough to give himself some space. 

He pauses, then. Waiting

_Wanting._

It occurs to Emily then that something’s missing. “Where’s your oil? Even leaking as you are, you need some _slip,_ ” her voice pitches low and rough on that last word.

Jindosh’s gaze flicks to her then, a smirk curling his lips. “I’m sure you’re slick enough for the both of us,” he says, not quite as fucked out of it as he appears, and then drops his eyes to his cock. An invitation to her. Her stomach clenches pleasantly at the idea, but penetrative sex is a rarity for her. 

(She always hated growing up at a distance from her father because it could never be formally acknowledged he that was. Her mother may have loved Corvo, but she couldn’t marry him. Emily doesn’t want that for her own eventual child. It must be legitimate. No unexpected surprises for her.)

Emily grabs his hair and yanks his gaze back up to her. His eyes flutter for a moment, a moan trapped behind his teeth, before settling on her again. “Last chance, Jindosh, or you’ll do without.”

“Under the cot,” he replies.

“Get it,” she tells him and releases her grip in his hair. 

He shifts, turning over so his arm can hang over the side of the cot. He pants desperately into the pillow as his cock makes contact with the bedspread before leaning slightly over the side to fish a hand under the cot. Emily’s gaze is drawn to where the rising swell of his ass is just visible between his loosened trousers and undershirt. Jindosh’s head rises from its bowed position, the movement catching her eye, and they stare at one another. 

The perfect slackness in his mouth, his blown pupils, the mess of his hair where her hands have been in it—she’s drawn to it all. For a moment, she thinks she might want to kiss him, to taste what she’s done to him, and leans slightly forward with that thought. He sees her movement and leans forward too, drawn in by the same craze that she is. There’s nothing sane about the way she wants right now or the way she’s gone about getting here.

Abruptly, she sits back. Going suddenly cold with the realization that she’s sitting here, with _Jindosh_ of all people, when Wyman is waiting for her. He’s probably worried sick about her, and she’s just going to exchange him for a bit of pleasure with someone she doesn’t even like? 

She must be telegraphing her change of mind clearly because Jindosh’s face goes from slack and open to hard and shut as he says, voice rough with arousal and creeping anger, “We haven’t finished.”

“You haven’t, but I have,” she replies and starts to stand. Pain lances through her side as she shifts her weight and Emily hisses through her teeth, any lingering arousal doused. Jindosh grabs her arm before she makes it fully upright. How dare he keep grabbing at her like this. 

“Don’t—”

“Release me,” she snarls at him, and his hand jumps away like it’s been burnt. “Finish yourself, and when you’re done, finish your breakfast.”

///

Emily has Dayna bring her another breakfast tray when she returns to her room, and this time has breakfast in bed. There’s a questioning look on Dayna’s face when Emily makes the request, but her mood is still dark, and Dayna doesn’t voice the question aloud. When she’s finished her food and Dayna collects the tray, she checks to make sure that Jindosh did as he was told and ate his own breakfast. 

Dayna confirms that two trays went back to the kitchen, one eaten and one not. 

It’s late afternoon when Hypatia arrives. 

Emily’s bathed and dressed when she gets the news and downs an elixir that Burton brought for her shortly after lunch. She’s still in a lot of pain, but it helps, and it’s probably not a bad thing to have Hypatia look at it since there isn’t anything she’ll be able to do for Jindosh. It seems silly to have her come all this way for nothing. 

Burton informs her that he’s put the Doctor in the Waiting Room. 

“The one the guards like to use?” Emily asks with an eyebrow raised. 

“They’ve already been informed it’s off-limits for the time being, and servants passageway exits near there. I will make sure you’re not seen,” Burton replies. “Follow me, please.”

As they wind their way through the servant’s passage, Emily asks after Jindosh. As angry as she is with their actions this morning, he must be back to normal so he can finish her armour. 

“Markedly improved. He seemed his usual self.”

“Well, that’s one of us, at least,” Emily replies with a sigh. 

“Under Doctor Hypatia’s care, I’m sure you’ll be peak health in no time, Ma’am.”

At the exit, Burton has her wait while he makes sure that the guards have left the hall around the Waiting Room. When it is clear, Emily crosses to the closed doors of the room and slips inside. 

Hypatia and Jindosh are already inside when she arrives. Jindosh is lounging on one of the couches, arms thrown over the back and feet on the nearby table. He’s bathed and clean-shaven, and just as Burton said, looks exactly like his usual self. Hypatia stands as she enters and immediately notes Emily's pained walk. 

“You’ve overexerted yourself, haven’t you?” Hypatia asks as she moves to Emily’s side, forgetting, for a moment, her formality toward Emily’s station. 

“I slipped off a lamppost last night,” Emily tells her as she takes a seat on the sofa kitty-corner to the one Jindosh is lounging on. “I caught myself, but it felt like I’d torn something. It was _very_ painful, and I’ve had two elixirs since.”

Hypatia frowns. “I only recommend a maximum of five a month, and you’ve about gone over that now, haven’t you? I’m surprised you aren’t ill.” She sits next to Emily on the couch and gently feels around the old wounds with her hands. When she hits certain spots, Emily hisses and twitches away. Hypatia nods. “My guess is that you’ve strained or torn the newly repaired muscle. The elixirs will speed the healing, but I don’t recommend any more for at least a month.

“Try a cold compress today, 10-15 minutes every hour, and then move on to wet heat until you find the soreness disappearing. After which you’ll need to start reconditioning your body. Start slowly and build up to your normal level of activity.”

“How long do you suppose that’ll take?”

“Three weeks? Maybe more. You’ll have a better idea once you start.”

Emily sighs, frowning at her own idiocy. She probably would have been ready this week to visit Stilton if she hadn’t reinjured herself. 

“Now, was the reason I called here just a smokescreen for Her Imperial Majesty, or is there something I can do for you?” Hypatia asks Jindosh.

“Smokescreen. I’m just peachy, Alex.”

Hypatia winces a little at that address, but she doesn’t say anything about it and nods her acceptance of Jindosh’s health. “I’ll be going then. Please take better care of yourself, Ma’am.”

“I’ll try,” Emily replies. 

“Usual payment?” Jindosh asks as he moves to press a discrete button mounted on the sofa’s side table.

“Yes. To the hospital in the Dust District, please. Have a good evening, Ma’am. Kirin.”

A moment later, Burton appears in the room, and Jindosh has him escort the Doctor out. The two of them sit there in silence, listening to the room’s clock tick, then, Jindosh rises from the couch and moves across the room.

“Come by the lab in a couple of days. I’ll be ready for a fitting then,” Jindosh tells her with all the briskness of a business meeting before disappearing out the door. 

She sits alone in the room with the ticking clock, wondering at that reaction. Of all the things that Jindosh might have said, that was not among the things she’d imagined. He was so angry when she left that his lack of apparent lingering frostiness or biting comments is now odd. After everything she’s experienced from him, she thought he’d at least be snippy with her. Not this calm, neutralness. 

If it’s a ploy to leave her wrong-footed, it worked. 

Emily leaves the Waiting Room after considering the morning’s events again. She still feels like an utter heel for being so eager to forget that Wyman existed. As Emily makes her way through the servants’ corridor, she hopes to run into one of them along the way, so she can put in a request for some ice chips. She must get back into fighting form.

Two days later, she wanders down to Jindosh’s workshop after soaking for an hour in a scalding hot tub. The regular intervals of heat seem to be helping immensely, and Emily’s already considering how to get back into shape. Simple exercises will suffice for now, but she needs to build up her stamina, and she doesn’t feel confident to just run the rooftops. An idea of how to do it safely hasn’t yet occurred to her, but it will. 

This time when she enters the lab, Emily doesn’t get a chance to snoop through any of Jindosh’s projects. He’s working at the table that faces the door, and his gaze flicks up to hers. He sets down his work and gestures for her to stand in a specific spot. 

She’s wearing the same outfit she had on to get measured and hopes that Jindosh’s condition that day hasn’t screwed up his numbers too much. The corselet looks about half-finished as he lifts from the table and hands it to her to put on. The leather is still raw, not yet stained against the elements and seems too thin to do much against sword or thorns, but she reminds herself that it’s not completed. She’s seen the armour the Clockwork Soldiers wear; Jindosh knows what he’s doing. 

There are simple hook fasteners at the front of the corselet, and Emily swings it on, clasping it together from the bottom up to the top where it rests just below her breast band. She tugs it a bit, trying to find the right place for it to sit, and two of the bottom hooks come unlatched. She makes a noise of annoyance, but before she gets a chance to re-hook them, Jindosh beats her to it.

Her eyebrows raise in surprise, but his attention is elsewhere, and he misses it. There’s a look of concentration as he takes over shifting the corselet, holding the bottom taut to keep the hooks together. His hands are steady, and he still looks just fine, so perhaps if she just gives a command every other day, he’ll stay that way.

“Arms up,” he tells her and Emily frowns slightly as she complies, feeling the way she does when she has to get fitted for a formal outfit. Jindosh walks around her, tugging and shifting the corselet here and there. “How’s that?” he asks as he comes back around the front. “Sitting right?”

Emily starts moving around. Bending, flexing her arms, reaching high and low, crouching, trying to do as much movement as she can handle pain-wise to get an idea of how it will move.

“It feels too loose at the bottom. Like it’ll slip off, and it’s distracting.”

“It won’t get around your hips,” Jindosh replies but moves to the table to get some heavy pins. 

The corselet is sewn together at the sides, but even she could tell as she slipped it on that they were temporary stitches. Jindosh pins the bottom a little tighter for her and then gestures for her to move again. 

“Yes. That’s better.”

“Anything else?”

Emily closes her eyes and focuses on how the corselet fits, breathing deep to make sure it won’t interfere with her need for large lung-fulls of air. As far as she can tell, it’s satisfactory, and she’s admittedly excited to put it use. However, until it goes on a run with her, she won’t be able to tell with a hundred percent certainty that it works for her.

“As far as I can tell, no. But I need to put it to use first.”

Jindosh smirks. “Another ill-advised trek through Aventa?”

“I do actually learn from my mistakes. Unlike some,” Emily bites back. 

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Jindosh replies, still smirking as he leans against the table. He didn’t rise to the bait and Emily is a little thrown by that. “The first Clockwork soldier had hardened leather as armour because it’s lightweight and sturdy, but it doesn’t do much against bullets, and I didn’t consider that someone might live long enough to fire at one.” He shrugs, leaving a story untold, and she finds herself wanting to hear it. 

Why is he talking to her like this?

“Then I moved to hardwood with a special lacquer over it that makes it resistant to bullets long enough to kill a gunman. ‘Course, then I had to learn woodworking after I’d already spend hundreds of hours learning leatherworking.”

She almost asks why he didn’t just get a carpenter or girdler to makes these things for him, but the fact he learned them for himself has proved useful for her, so she decides to leave that and asks instead,

“Why don’t you just use steel?”

“It’s too heavy. The gears and coils inside already weigh over two hundred pounds. If I added another hundred fifty pounds of steel as armour, it’d be too slow to be effective and wouldn’t be able to carry its own weight.”

“Hardwood is heavy.”

“But not as heavy as steel. I saved 75 pounds. If aluminium wasn’t so expensive, I would’ve used it instead, but I’m trying to lower costs, not increase them.”

Emily pauses, thinking. She swore she heard something about aluminium recently. In a report? At the Legislature? …No, the Academy, at the last meeting with the Minister of Education. That was right before the coup.

“I believe I heard something about a new refining process that the Academy had discovered that would reportedly lower the costs of aluminium.”

“Oh? Interesting.” He gets a calculating look on his face like he’s already turning the information into something he can take advantage of. She wonders if she should’ve just kept her mouth shut, but then she can hear Sokolov’s voice reminding her to find other ways of dealing with Jindosh.

“Before you start plotting the fate of chemical factories and mines, are we finished here?”

Jindosh blinks and looks at her. “What? Oh yes, you can take that off. I’ll get it properly together, and you can test it down in the maze or something.”

“Maze?” Emily questions as she pops the hooks.

“Where I was keeping Sokolov,” Jindosh replies with a flick of his hand. “The Assessment Chamber. I used it to test soldiers to work out the kinks. You can make a training course out of it, I’m sure.”

“That’s…actually a good idea,” Emily says, immediately warming to the suggestion.

Jindosh gives her an insufferably smug smile, though there’s something odd in his gaze. “I know.”

It’s another two days before she sees Jindosh again. She’s busy down in the lower levels building a course that will be suitable for diminished capabilities. Now that Sokolov is safe on _The Dreadful Wale,_ there’s no need for guards down here, and she’s got the whole clockwork puzzle to herself. 

It takes her a bit of time to work out how to get the walls to shift the way she wants them to and line them up in a way that will let her ease into her average level of activity. She tries a few simple balancing acts on half walls and jumps up on to short platforms to get herself used to working those sorts of muscles again. 

She gets a message from Dayna shortly after lunch that the corselet is ready for her to test, and Emily hops down from her balancing position, feeling a small twinge in her side at the movement. It’s so much better than before. However, her body is still protesting in small ways at being used like this again. 

“Do you have it?” Emily asks as she makes her way to the doorway of the chamber, Dayna standing outside the maze and steadfastly refusing to budge an inch inside. 

“No, Ma’am. Master Jindosh wished to speak with you first.”

Emily frowns. This must be Jindosh’s way of getting back at her. He gets to make her jump to his orders because he still has something she wants. “And he couldn’t come down here to see me?”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I didn’t think to ask that,” Dayna replies a little frantically. “I’ve never been a Lady’s maid; I don’t know all the protocols. I’m just a scullery maid, and I begged Burton not to assign me this task because I was sure to mess it up, but he didn’t—”

Emily touches her shoulder and Dayna immediately stops talking. “It’s alright. I’m annoyed with Jindosh, not you. And you’ve been doing fine. My Lady’s maid back home was a stuffy thing that I never really liked, so much so that I started dressing myself when I was twelve. It’s been a while for me to have to do this dance.” She smiles. “You and I will just have to figure it out together since I imagine Burton will have a fit if he realized that I don’t normally use a Lady’s maid.”

Dayna returns Emily’s smile with a small one of her own. “Yes, he probably would.”

Later, Emily shoves open the door to the workshop, thinking her entrance would be so much better if she could have done it from the bridge door and not the bedroom door, and says into the open, and seemingly empty space,

“What so important that you couldn’t just send the corselet down with Dayna?” 

Jindosh leans over the railing on the second floor, prosthetic faintly smoking. The visual cue seems to wake her nose, and she can smell the burning tobacco on the air. “You mean aside from the fact that you haven’t given me any orders for the last four days? Your armour is on the table to your left, but let’s talk first, hmm?”

There’s a moment where Emily seriously considers grabbing her corselet and leaving the lab, but she is forced to consider how poorly Jindosh was just a few days ago and how she doesn’t want to end up in _that_ place again. She makes a low noise of frustration and heads back to the elevator. 

Jindosh is still leaning against the railing when Emily makes it upstairs. 

“Well, what do you want?” she asks as she moves along the second level. “You aren’t cordial unless you want something, and you’ve been far too nice these last few days.”

“For just me or for a man left panting for release?” he bites suddenly, and it’s the first indication she’s gotten that he was still angry about how she left. 

Just thinking about that morning brings colour to her cheeks, but she uses her best Empress voice to say, “Speak, or I’ll leave.”

“I’ve had to face the unpleasant realization in the last couple of weeks that as much as I desire for you to return to Dunwall and leave me be, that is no longer an option. As such, I’ve had to turn my mind to other alternatives.”

“You’ll have no shortage of patrons, I’m sure,” Emily replies with a dismissive wave. “As long as you attend Court, you’ll be fine.”

“Yes, I had considered that solution but found it wanting,” Jindosh says and takes a puff on his ceramic thumb. “But then, Burton mentioned something about me exchanging Grand for _Royal_ Inventor, and I must admit that strikes me as a much better solution.”

Emily frowns. “Does it? Well, I haven’t offered it. Burton made that leap all on his own.”

“You should. It solves all our littles problems in a nice, neat way. Or did you look forward to Court starting rumours about why I spend so much time in Dunwall Tower when I have other patrons? People never assume it’s something _innocent._ ”

“We’re far from that.”

Jindosh’s eyebrows raise at her tone. “Ah yes, that pesky noble you seem so intent on courting. From Morley no less.” His inflection is evident in its disdain for that island.

“As if you or this island are any better.”

“Be careful what you say about us, Serkonans. You share our blood, after all. And aside from your taste in nobles with power-hungry families—that _is_ why you choose him, isn’t it?—” Jindosh prods expertly at that new wound she’s been steadfastly ignoring, and Emily finds herself sliding into anger—“you’ve proven intelligent enough in the past. This arrangement would benefit us both.

“To say nothing of how far behind the times Gristol is compared to us. Is Sokolov’s name still stamped on every outdated carriage and Wall of Light out there, or have you _finally_ moved into the Age of Enlightenment?”

Emily hates that he seems to know that she’s had upgrade requests clogging her approval backlog for months, years even, but she’s never much cared about it all before now. Parliament handled most of it, and there are exceedingly slow about it. It feels like the only time she ever cared enough to bother with an Executive Order was when she witnessed the problem firsthand, either by riding in or watching it from the rooftops.

_It won’t be like that anymore,_ she vows.

“I thought you hated that sort of work,” Emily snaps.

“Oh I do, but the reward for services rendered will be great indeed,” he replies, making it clear that she’s supposed to supply incentive. Of what, exactly, is less clear.

“And when I say no? Then what?” she stalks toward him, as intimidating as she can manage, her once hated Empress mask falling into place. “You’ll still have to be in Dunwall, you’ll still have to be at my Court, and you’ll _still_ have to do what I say.”

“Always? Or just until you forget something, and I free myself through one means or another.” Jindosh takes a long puff on his ceramic pipe and releases an exhale of smoke, the tendrils curling around his face. “Incentive will keep me at your side more readily than any command you might bark.”

“How can I be certain you wouldn’t end up against me in the end?”

“What animal is dumb enough to bite the hand that feeds it?” Jindosh scoffs. “As long as I get something I want out of it, then what reason would I have to get out of it? I’ve lived as Grand Inventor happily enough, you let me do much of the same, and I won’t start a revolution.”

Emily rolls her eyes at that but is silent as she considers.

She doesn’t want Jindosh so close and accessible all the time, that feels like it might be too much of a temptation. It already feels like it is now, she’s been itching to see Jindosh spread out for her ever since that morning a few days ago. The possibility of more is rattling around her in her brain, and it's hard to ignore.

Surely, she must be able to exert some level of control over herself if he did end up Royal Inventor, and honestly, how often have they seen each other living in this mansion? The Tower is far more extensive, and she could go days without seeing him face to face. Once Wyman returned to her side, it wouldn’t be so difficult to ignore temptation. 

“If I agreed to appoint you, _after_ you receive your Master’s, I want something in return,” Emily says after a moment. 

“My mind isn’t enough? My dignity?”

“Your mind, as you frequently remind me, isn’t entirely mine to command, and you gave your dignity to The Outsider. I have no claim on that.”

Jindosh gives an annoyed sigh, apparently conceding the point. “Well, what do you want then?”

She’s careful to phrase her words and tone of voice, so her next words aren’t a command. It has to be freely given. “The story behind why the Academy expelled you.”

The moment the words are out of her mouth, Emily can see him shut down.

“No.”

“You’d better start looking for a patron in Dunwall, then.”

“Why do you even care about that?” Jindosh snaps, scowling at her.

“Because it’ll come up when I go to speak to the Academy about you. They’ll likely throw your expulsion around as the reason they won’t let you back in—”

“That’s your problem to solve, not mine.”

“I haven’t _finished,_ ” Emily growls, and Jindosh straightens involuntarily at her tone. “But more important than saving me some hassle with the Academy, I’m curious to know if you’re the monster everyone says you are. How did Alexandria put it? All the empathy of a mantis.”

His face is perfectly neutral as he replies, “And if I am? It hardly changes anything.”

“Except the way I deal with you.”

Jindosh eyes her silently as he considers the bargain, smoke slowly curling from his prosthetic. Emily waits for him to come to a decision as patiently as she can. 

“Fine,” he eventually snarls. “Meet me in Lounge after dinner.”

Emily nods and stands. 

As she grabs her half-finished corselet from the table, she doesn’t mention that she has no idea what room he considers the Lounge. Dayna will undoubtedly know, however, so she’ll just have to ask when she sees the girl next.

///

The Lounge, as it turns out, is the room that doubles as the dining room. The one she walks through almost invariably when she’s behind the walls to get to the Waiting Room where the guards congregate. The table is stored away when she arrives. In its place is the grand piano and along one wall, the bar. A small seating area is to the right of the piano. Jindosh already has a drink in hand and is picking out a tune. 

The song is nothing like what she was taught as a child and a teen, but it is strangely familiar. It takes her a few moments to place just where she’s heard it before, but it suddenly dawns on her: The Void.

Emily takes a seat on the couch diagonally across from the piano bench and in Jindosh’s eye line. The movement makes him look up, but his hand doesn’t falter on the keys before he concentrates on them again. After a time, the music abruptly ends, his hand resting delicately on the keys as if it doesn’t know where to go next. Emily stands then, and moves to the bar, browsing through the selection before deciding on a pear soda and vodka. 

Drink in hand, she returns to the couch. Jindosh rises from the piano bench but doesn’t move to sit. Instead, he walks around the side of the piano, putting the instrument between them. Emily raises an eyebrow at him, prompting him and he frowns, looking away and into the interior of the piano.

She feels a flash of annoyance at his avoidance, but she tells herself to calm because it might be a good thing that’s so reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps he’s ashamed of it, which could work to her advantage in the long run. Then again, it may just be a blow to his ego, and that would be less helpful. 

Emily decides to start them off. 

“The Outsider told me you made a toy for a little girl and drove her insane. I assume that’s what your expulsion is about.”

Jindosh's face twists sharply. “It didn’t cause insanity,” he snaps. “It worked exactly the way it was designed to.”

Emily gestures with a hand for him to continue. If this is going to be like pulling teeth, so help her Abbey…

“As an apprentice, when you near the last year at the Academy,” Jindosh starts off, exceedingly harsh, “it is your responsibility to find a patron for your work. Public or private. One of the citizen members of the Academy Council, a Lord of something or other, heard that Sokolov and I no longer were on speaking terms with one another. He didn't care much for Sokolov, either. So, this Lord thought it might be entertaining to sponsor me as an insult to him. I agreed.

“Of course, you have to prove yourself capable and are required to build or perform in some way to show your competence in your field and how you might benefit your patron. I made the man several things, and he was...less than impressed. Which, I know now, was simply a ruse to get more out of me in my desperate attempt to be seen as a contemporary to Sokolov.” 

Jindosh dismisses the memory with a flick of his wrist, annoyed with his past self. “In any case, I noticed that aside from the man's excessive pride, he loved only one thing more than himself: his daughter. A girl of six. I figured if I could impress her, I'd secure the patronage. Thus, I made her a clockwork cat.”

“Out the bones of an actual cat,” Emily says, frowning. 

“How better to get true articulation and form? It wasn’t as if you could see the skeleton.”

She hesitates to even ask where he got a skeleton from. He continues.

“It was an early prototype of my current creations. When powered, it would first pounce and then run and stalk bugs and rodents for approximately five minutes. 

“The girl loved the thing from the moment I presented it to her, and I knew that I'd finally secured his patronage. We started negotiations the next day, how much he'd pay me, the sort of things I might build, etcetera. It took nearly a week to come to a tentative agreement for a five-year patronage. The Lord was leaving for a vacation to Karnaca the next day, and I agreed to wait until after he returned to officially sign an agreement. I wasn't in any rush, I still had an entire year of schooling to finish, and I didn't want to come off as too pushy or desperate. 

“I wasn't present for their departure, but from what I gathered from the man's shouts and threats of violence after, along with my own deductions, I can make a safe assumption of what happened that day at the station. The girl carried the toy with her everywhere, refused to be without it, and no one thought to pack it in a bag where it wouldn't be a temptation. She must've turned the cat on at the station, probably bored with waiting for a carriage to the docks and set it down to do its little tricks...” Jindosh stops there, hand tightening on his glass. He doesn't need to finish for Emily to put the ending together.

She stares at him in horrified shock. “It ran into the tracks, and she followed.” 

Jindosh gives a short nod. “There are...conflicting reports about exactly what happened. If electrocution or a glancing blow of a carriage caused brain damage, but it hardly matters, I suppose. He blamed me for his inattention, and because he was a council member, they sided with him.”

Jindosh falls silent, looking at the alcohol left in his glass. Emily almost doesn't want to believe the story, it paints Jindosh as too much of a victim. Was he really so blameless in the whole thing? That's not how the Outsider implied it. Emily looks at Jindosh, the tense and angry set to his shoulders, the purposeful distance of the piano between them—perhaps the Outsider was reflecting what Jindosh thought of the situation. 

He says it's not his fault, but does he believe that? 

Emily resolves to question Sokolov about the matter when she returns to the Wale. 

“Why should they have sided with you? His daughter’s future was _taken_ from her,” she prods, somewhat cruelly she knows, but she wants the truth or at least the truth that Jindosh believes. 

“I am _not_ responsible for what happened to that child. Her father is the one who failed to watch her.”

“Aren't you? Your soldiers have sophisticated sensors to detect friends and foes, and surely, they don't step off a ledge without first calculating the drop. So why then, didn't that toy have some sort of...fulcrum in it to keep it from running off the edge of something?”

“ _Because_ I didn't think of that,” Jindosh snaps. “I didn’t think it would interest her beyond a few days. If I had, I might have made it with more care. It was scrap metal and wood; stuff I had lying about. I’d built a dozen similar things while at the Academy to learn the function of gears and mechanisms, but nothing for a child. I had no aspirations of being a toymaker. It was a novelty, nothing more, and I expected it to last precisely that long.”

They fall into silence again after that. 

Emily loath to admit it, she doesn’t hate him so much now. He should have put more thought into the toy, but as far as she can tell, it wasn’t made with malicious intent. Ultimately, her parents should have paid more attention to what she was doing, and for it, they paid the ultimate price. That burden of guilt is something she can’t even begin to imagine. 

Emily looks at the glass in her hand, still more than half full, and watches the bubbles of her soda rise slowly to the top. She feels sad for those parents, Jindosh, and herself. 

“Play that song again,” she tells him, after a time.

Jindosh gives her an almost grateful look before knocking back the rest of his drink and sitting back down at the piano. 

It’s nearly morning before they leave, music ebbing and flowing, Jindosh playing whatever strikes his fancy after Emily told him to keep playing. They hardly speak, drink more alcohol that is strictly appropriate, and are morose in their own separate worlds. Eventually, Emily stands from the couch, feeling wobbly and lightheaded, touches Jindosh’s arm and tells him to go to bed. 

A week later, Jindosh is putting the finishing touches on her corselet, just as Emily is well enough to really push the boundaries of her course down in the Maze. She’s already broken the leather in somewhat with her use, but she’s been using it so much that Jindosh hasn’t had it long enough before now to stain the leather or stitch the detailing he prefers. 

With everything finally coming together, she’s antsy for some real exercise by way of breaking into Stilton’s mansion.

There’s been an air of tense politeness between her and Jindosh since the night in the Lounge. Emily wouldn’t call it an accord, but they’ve decided to hold their tongues when it comes to jeering remarks, and it’s been a little strange. She almost wishes they would snipe at one another so she would have some snappish commands to give him. It’s getting harder and harder to think of things to keep him occupied with that don’t involve, a bed, Emily’s harsh hands on him, and that needy desperation to get off. 

She has Wyman. She _loves_ Wyman, but the way she enjoyed commanding Jindosh that morning is starting to scare her. 

In an attempt to keep herself distracted, Emily has begun debating how to get from the Clockwork Mansion over to the Dust District without being seen. If this were Dunwall, she would already have a route picked out and guard rotations noted, but she doesn’t know Karnaca half as well, and it's limiting her options. It would be easier if she were still on the _Dreadful Wale._ because Megan would just ferry her where needed to be, and that would be the end of thinking about it. 

It bothers her enough that Emily starts discussing it with Jindosh as his knowledge of the city is far greater than hers. She learns more about his life before Grand Inventor that she thought possible through the casual way he tells her which streets to avoid and where the best places are to climb the windbreaks to avoid guard posts. 

It gives her this incongruous vision of Jindosh as a child, slipping quietly through back alleys, and deftly climbing the sides of building in a bid to avoid the Grand Guard. 

They’re in the middle of a discussion about it, weighing the merits of slipping onto the cargo carriage that runs between the districts, or timing low-tide precisely and taking the sewers, when Burton announces that Megan Foster has arrived. She wishes to see Jindosh about a shipment of steel he’s supposedly expecting. 

Emily and Jindosh give each other a look across the table before he stands and strides to where the intercom is located. 

“Put Foster in the Waiting Room. I’ll be down momentarily.” He turns back to her and says shortly, “Be quick.” Before heading out of the lab, bridge unfurling before him. 

Emily hops down from the lab table she was using as a chair and heads out to the master bedroom and the servant’s corridor. 

Burton is waiting for her at the exit closest to the Waiting Room. 

“Master Jindosh is keeping the guards occupied at the moment,” he tells her and then opens the door to check the corridor is still clear, before gesturing for her to dash across the hall and into the Waiting Room. 

Inside, Megan is slouching in one of the chairs, a glass of whiskey in her had. She raises it slightly as Emily enters, more at ease than Emily has ever seen her. Jindosh being off her ship, is clearly doing wonders. “Empress.”

“Megan. You have excellent timing.”

Megan smirks ever so slightly, and Jindosh strides into the room a moment later. Megan studies them as they take seats on separate couches. 

“I expected one of you to be dead by now,” she says and takes a sip of her whiskey. “Guess I lost the bet.”

Emily just shrugs because she can’t really believe it either, and Jindosh just huffs and rolls his eyes. 

“Yes, yes, Sokolov just loves being right. Why are you here?”

Megan isn’t ruffled by his waspishness. She never was except when Jindosh took her ship apart for parts.

“Hypatia sent word that you were reinjured. I postponed coming here for that reason. But you look well enough now.”

Emily nods. 

“You’ll have a hard time getting into the Dust District. It’s been quarantined. I know a way in. I’ll take you.”

“Now?” Emily asks with some surprise, mind already turning where she left her things. 

“No. We’ll go to the _Wale_ tonight and in the morning go to the Dust District. We have to be there in the daylight to meet a friend, but you can’t safely move from here until dark.” Megan turns the alcohol in her glass and pierces Jindosh with a look. “Given you half pulled my ship apart, the least you could do if offer me a decent meal and some more whiskey while I wait.”

Jindosh raises an eyebrow but spares them any crass remarks as he calls for Burton. “Take Foster to the Dining Room and feed her. After, gather the Empresses things, she’s leaving tonight.”

As soon as Burton nods in understanding, Jindosh stands and sweeps out of the room. 

“He must hate that you’re here, ordering him around,” Megan notes with that smirk again. “It's not the kind of punishment I think he deserves, but it’ll do.”

“I’m not sure hate is the right word for it,” Emily replies, speaking before considering her words; thoughts caught again on how much he _didn’t_ hate her ordering him on that cot. 

Megan gives her a penetrating look like she can see inside her brain. 

“Tolerate is perhaps better, Your Imperial Majesty?” Burton suggests, and Emily isn’t sure that’s the word for it either, but she nods anyway, so Megan will stop looking at her like that.

///

Dayna helps her gather her things from where they’ve migrated over the last month. The leather bag she brought her weapons in holds the few items of clothing she’s gotten and the things that Emily won’t need taking up space in her pockets for the trip back to the _Deadful Wale,_ like what little money she’s scrounged, her tobacco and pipe, extra darts and traps. 

Emily decides to have a bath before she leaves since she believes that this will be the last time she’ll have access to running water until she returns to Dunwall to defeat Delilah. Things are going to start moving very fast now, she can sense it. 

She has Dayna leave a set of clothes for her in the bathroom and run her a scalding bath. By the time she gets around to being ready to get in, it should be cool enough to handle. Emily also sets out all the gear she plans on having on her, testing her father’s blade for draw speed and checking the tension on her crossbow. 

After a moment’s consideration, Emily picks both weapons up and heads into Jindosh’s lab with them. Perhaps it’s silly, but for the first time since this whole thing began, Emily is nervous about what will happen when she gets to the Dust District. The last time she went after one of Delilah’s cronies, she almost died, and the prospect of going after another one or, at the very least, a piece of the puzzle, has anxiety blossoming in her chest. 

How she’s going to deal with it when she’s in the thick of it, Emily doesn’t know, but she can get Jindosh to look at her weapons and make sure they won’t fail her. Her nerves are another thing entirely. 

In the lab, Jindosh has her corselet open on the table as he presses a hot brand into the leather. When he removes it, _Jindosh Clockworks_ is burnt into it. 

“Give it a moment to cool, and you can take it,” he tells her as he sets the brand down on a cradle and removes a pair of heavy leather gloves. 

Emily nods and sets her weapons on the table. “Give these a once over. I haven’t used them in a while.”

Jindosh gives her a narrow-eyed look but picks up her father’s sword and exams it. Emily hops onto the table and watches him work, feeling the tightness of anxiety clamp her chest a little bit more with each passing moment. Jindosh opens the sword with a flick of his wrist and checks the locks to make sure it doesn’t collapse again when least expected—testing them by pressing the tip of the sword into the side of the table and putting pressure on the blade. 

“Can’t say I’m looking forward to being in Dunwall again, nor having to build another laboratory,” Jindosh says when he’s satisfied with the locks and pulls out a bottle of oil from a drawer. 

“Bring it with you, then.”

“Some of it can’t be moved.”

“It’s not as if we’ll never return here. Karnaca has kind of grown on me. Maybe I’ll winter here,” Emily replies flippantly. 

Jindosh snorts and starts sharpening her sword on a fine grit stone.

“Build an entire clockwork lab in the castle. Complete with shifting walls and creepy soldiers. That way, I can escape after the fiftieth meeting of the day, and no one will be able to find me until my hair grows back.”

“Don’t say that unless you mean it, because I will rip your castle apart, on your dime, and do _exactly_ that.” He replies, smoothly working her blade in long strokes against the stone. 

“I didn’t say make the whole castle a clockwork lab, I said build a lab in the castle. And I will provide funds for it, within reason, but you’d better be worth every penny.”

Jindosh smirks. “All that and more.”

He takes his time working her blade to sharpened perfection before setting it aside and picking up her crossbow and looking it over. 

“There’s nothing wrong with this. I made it better.”

“I need a little peace of mind. I don’t know what to expect at Stilton’s.”

“There’s nothing to expect. He’s there alone. That’s why there’s a lock—no need for guards. Food is delivered once a day,” Jindosh replies, but he still gives the crossbow mechanisms a once over.

“That’s it? Nothing else? The last time you gave intel on a place, it was full of _witches._ ”

There’s a sliver of hesitation as Jindosh sets her crossbow down, and Emily is instantly angry. They _agreed._ She grabs his chin and forces him to look at her. 

“ _Speak._ ”

Jindosh grimaces in pain, but not from her hold. “I think it’s a tear,” he says through gritted teeth. “The Void leaks through it.”

“A _tear?_ ” Now there’s a frightening prospect. The Void doesn’t belong in their realm. Just as they don’t belong in it. “How did it get there?” she demands.

He makes a noise of pain. “I-I still can’t tell you. Do you think I enjoy this?”

Emily lets go of him with a snarl. “Never mind then.”

Jindosh leans over the table, panting and holding his head in one hand. 

“…I only realized it was a tear after,” he says after a moment. “At the time, I didn’t know. Breanna kept us in the dark and bound us to secrecy after.”

“So, you, Alexandra, Ashworth, and Stilton were there. Abele too?”

“Yes. The drunken idiot. Stilton should’ve washed his hands in dealing with him after Theodanis died, but he felt _guilty_ about fucking Luca’s father and Luca let him wallow in it. Fool.” 

Jindosh’s words are harsh and biting, but underneath, it almost sounds like he’s angry at Stilton. 

It’s all news to Emily, but she never did keep close tabs on the aristocracy of the other nations under her rule. Something else she’ll have to rectify. Personal lives aren’t her business, but attempted coups are. 

“Are you going to be gone long?” Jindosh asks, looking askance at her from where he’s still leaning against the table. “Because your orders have been a little sparse lately, and I don’t want to go into… _withdrawal_ while you’re gone.”

Emily can’t help the flash of guilt at that. She’s well aware of how few orders she’s given lately. “I don’t know. A few days. You’ll have to join us on the _Wale_ before too long.”

“I have more to pack than you do.”

“Will you make it that long?”

“No.”

That simple word makes something thrill inside her. It makes her a little reckless, and she gives in, just a little. 

Emily reaches over and runs a hand up the back of Jindosh’s neck and into his hair, lightly grabbing hold of the longer strands. He makes a breathless noise, before saying,

“Don’t play with me.”

“You don’t give the orders around here.”

“Neither do you, apparently,” he snaps. “Spare me your guilt; I don’t need it. I only need you to make the buzzing in my head go away.”

Emily yanks his head back. “Not everything revolves around you.”

“Doesn’t it? You do.”

That hits her just as hard as he no doubt wanted it to, and Emily reels. Does she? Abruptly, she lets him go and slides off the table. 

“Don’t—” he snarls at her. 

She ignores him and heads out of the lab and down the hall toward the master bedroom. It doesn’t take long for Jindosh’s footsteps to chase after her. A savage sort of grin steals across her face. 

In the bedroom, she waits for him, standing to the side of the door, very nearly out on the balcony. When he rushes inside, Emily rushes at him, dissolving into a tendril of smoke, only to reappear and slam her shoulder into him. He flies into the side of the bed. She strides to where he’s collapsed on the ground hissing in pain and straddles his legs with a crouch.

“Who revolves around whom, hmm?”

Jindosh tips his chin up, defiant. 

“You couldn’t help yourself, could you? One little taste and here you are, chasing after me like some wayward dog.” Emily wraps a hand around his neck, her thumb slowly stroking along the cord of muscle on display as he looks up at her, a mix of anger and lust playing over his face. 

Oh, he _needs_ her so badly. It's so intoxicating having this control over him, and longer he looks at her, the drunker Emily gets. She wants to pull him apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left but her. 

She shifts back from Jindosh, letting him go. “Get on the bed.”

He scrambles to comply. It would almost be comical in any other situation, but it just makes her stomach clench hot and hard. 

Jindosh is a little more put together than he was the last time they did this—not so close to falling over that razor-sharp edge. He’s clean-shaven, or he was this morning, and he’s fully dressed.

Emily can’t honestly say which version she likes better, but for this one, at least, there’s more to unwrap. There’s something very attractive about how sharply Jindosh dresses, and she’s desperate to pull it all off and lay him bear of the armour he wears so well. 

As she watches him get settled on the bed, Emily stands. When he’s done, she follows after him, moving to straddle his thighs, balancing her weight between her legs and his. Jindosh’s eyes follow her sharply, hooded and _very_ interested. As she shifts to find the right level of comfort, his hands tap impatiently on the coverlet. Emily lets him stew for a bit until she can see the way he’s working up to say something snappish, and then she speaks.

“Open,” she commands with her _Empress_ voice and taps the buttons of his vest.

Jindosh’s fingers spring to comply, a soft, relieved sound escaping his throat. 

As she watches, she suddenly recalls Sokolov’s words about Jindosh needing a ‘firm hand.’ 

Obviously, he needs the commands for the relief they provide, but Sokolov seemed to imply something older than their newly acquired situation. She had believed that the sexual desire aspect of this whole thing was part of the Outsider’s Mark and was what Jindosh meant when he said he traded his dignity for his mind. 

Now, Emily starts to wonder if his lost dignity is about losing the restraint and control over the long-seated desire to be ordered around like this. It was a jibe when she brought it up before, but now she believes she hit closer to the truth than she knew. 

She has no proof, of course, nor can she go back in time and check and see if Jindosh was like this previously. There is also the strong possibility that this is her attempt to make the whole situation more palatable for herself.

But what _if?_

When his vest is finally open, Emily taps the buttons of his shirt and says, “This too.”

As he works on that, she notices his pocket watch has slid out of his vest pocket and is lying in a heap of gold chain where Jindosh unclasped it. She picks it up and looks its over, curious to see something personal of his—this house has a surprising lack of personal touches even though he built himself. 

There are the displays of his clockwork soldiers, which he clearly considers his best work, but she wouldn’t call that personal. That’s more museum-like than a home. Even his lab, with all its projects, tools, and notes, is austere on that front. The only personal things she could ascribe to him would be the self-portrait of Sokolov that hangs behind his desk and the one silvergraph of the Karnaca cabal that hangs in his studio. 

Which, in a house of this size, is odd. 

The pocket watch is a weighty little thing, with an intricately engraved backing plate where his initials are set in flowing script. A gleaming crystal front protects a thin mother of pearl ring around the outside of the face where the numbers sit. The rest of the face is purposefully missing to show the workings of the gears inside. It reminds her of the clock set in the dome of the lab. 

“It was a gift,” Jindosh tells her as he pulls his shirttails from his trousers, “from a man I was too naïve to realize was a complete asshole until too late. It was a cheap knock-off, just like him, until I made it into a priceless original.”

Emily’s brow furrows. He can’t mean…? “Anton?”

Jindosh barks a laugh. “Oh Void, _no._ I wouldn’t fuck Sokolov.”

She makes a face. “I should hope not. That would be an egregious abuse of power on Anton’s part.”

“And this isn’t?” His eyes glitter dangerously at her.

Emily frowns and looks away. He’s right—it is. All the guilt and shame she’s been ignoring since this started hits her like a blast from an arc pylon. She might even have visibly winced just then as she starts to move away, thinking about how to provide Jindosh relief that doesn’t make her feel like a monster. 

He grabs her wrist, stopping her. A snarl half-formed on his face where he’s braced up on one arm, shirt falling open, revealing his bare chest. 

“Don’t. You don’t get to feel guilty and fuck off without finishing this.”

“I’ll feel how I feel,” she snaps. 

“Fuck your feelings; fuck me instead.”

Emily twists out of Jindosh’s gripe with a growl. “I don’t fuck anyone, but especially not you.”

“What? Your precious Lord doesn’t make you wet?”

“He brings me screaming satisfaction with his mouth,” she bites back fiercely. 

“ _Liar,_ ” Jindosh says simply, eyes glittering again. “You wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

“I’m here because of _you._ ”

“No. I just need orders; the manner I get them is up to you. You started this, and yet, _frustratingly,_ you refuse to finish it.” Jindosh’s gaze drops suddenly to where she’s straddling his thighs, before cutting back up with a crooked smile. “I could make you scream.”

Emily glares at him, but her face heats and her cunt throbs. Jindosh must notice because he continues. 

“I’d make you swear to _me._ I’d lick a strip from one end of your cunt to the other; suck on your clit until you’re sobbing for the relief of an orgasm,” he tells her, voice low and rough, and _Void,_ it does things to her. “ _Make me_ and we’ll both get what we want.”

“Will we?” she asks and presses Jindosh back into the bedspread. He goes willingly. “Because what I want is—”

The sound of the servant’s entrance opening has Emily choking to a stop. 

“The bath is cool enough now, Ma’am. Shall I—” Dayna’s voice cuts itself off, presumably the moment she sees them on the bed. Emily can’t bring herself to look over her shoulder, but Jindosh has no such qualms. 

“Get _out,_ ” he snarls, all teeth and sharp lines. 

The door all but slams in Dayna’s escape. She’s so eager to leave that there isn’t even her customary apologizing. It might have been funny if Emily wasn’t so mortified. 

As she starts panicking about who’s going to find out now that Dayna caught them, Emily scrambles off the bed. Jindosh rushes after her, trying to catch her long enough to get her to listen to him. However, she’s more concerned with getting as far away from the bedroom without really considering where she can go. Automatically she starts heads for the door to the laboratory. 

“ _Emily,_ ” Jindosh barks as her hand closes around the door handle, and that catches her off guard enough to make her pause. That’s only the second time he’s said her name; he’s either mockingly called her ‘Your Majesty’ or Kaldwin.

After a couple of heartbeats, Emily makes herself look at him. 

“What?”

“Don’t leave me like this.” 

He says this calmly, though, with the way his hands are clenched, it costs him. He’s frustrated but trying to keep a lid on it, which is something he hasn’t bothered to do in previous situations. 

Emily wavers, knowing she can’t leave for the _Wale_ without giving him the orders he needs, but she’s grown weary of it. Yes, she’ll admit to greatly enjoying ordering Jindosh around in a sexual context. However, she would like it much better if it was something Jindosh gave to her for that specific situation and was his own autonomous person the rest of the time. 

Especially since she’s starting to sort of like him (against all his apparent efforts), and it would be much better on her conscience if he were free of the compulsion to obey her. 

“ _Please,_ ” he says, unclenching his hands and deciding to go for honey instead of his customary vinegar, “Don’t leave.”

That moves her more than any of his previous snarling and spitting. It’s so raw that she can’t help but be pulled back toward him; she wants to ease that note of desperation into the heady torture that she prefers to see splayed across his face. 

When she reaches him, Emily strokes her hand through his hair, and Jindosh lets out a shaky sigh as his eyes fall closed. He obviously wasn’t confident that she’d stay and is relieved that she has. Her hand stops at the base of his skull, her Mark covering his. What a mismatched pair they are. 

Emily again regrets turning Jindosh into this, while also wondering how it could’ve possibly been different. By the time she’d reached his mansion those two months ago, it was already too late; they were already on their crash course. 

If she’d been a better Empress, this wouldn’t have happened. None of it would’ve. 

Jindosh opens his eyes. “Stop thinking and fuck me.”

She pulls him close and moves to her easily. “I told you, I don’t fuck anyone,” she reiterates, but then feels the need to add, “Not often; not like this.”

“How then? I have condoms.”

“Which men get nothing out of, and honestly don’t really do anything for me either. No. I’ll watch.” Emily moves her face next to his, so he doesn’t see how her face burns to say, “You’re such a pretty thing, all sprawled out for me, waiting for my words.”

Jindosh inhales sharply. 

“Undress,” she tells him and steps back to give him a bit of space. “But leave your shirt on.”

Emily watches as Jindosh goes through the peripherals of removing his boots and socks before working on the button and hooks of his trousers, stepping out of them and his pants when he’s done, leaving his half-hard cock bare to her gaze. When his vest joins the rest on the floor, Emily tears her gaze away to look at his face again. 

“On the bed. Belly up.”

He turns and crawls back onto the bed, a flush of red rising from his chest before she loses sight of it. His dress shirt covers the view of his ass as well, and she’s disappointed by that, but when he’s sprawled out on the coverlet, his shirt open around him and looking half-debauched already, she forgives it that transgression. 

Emily moves to the nightstand and pulls out a jar of oil she’d seen previously when she had poked around and then joins Jindosh on the bed. She lays on her side about a foot away, her knee braced in front of her, as she runs her gaze the length of him.

Emily strokes through his hair, her blunt nails scraping along his scalp, remembering the way he reacted before, and Jindosh melts with a shivery little sound. After doing that a few more times, she moves from his hair to his nipples, the flat of her hand circling. 

Jindosh chokes on a moan. 

She pulls her hand away and says quietly, “Now you.”

His hands move to mimic her motions, slowly teasing himself until he’s panting and squirming. She glances down to find his cock fully hard and oh, the sight of that makes her cunt ache. 

“Stop.”

He does, turning to look at her, eyes impossibly dark. Once again, she wants to kiss him, to _taste_ him; there’s something about the way he looks when they do this that makes her sharply desire to be close like that. Unconsciously, Emily licks her lips, and Jindosh’s gaze drops there. 

To keep from doing anything too rash, Emily picks up the jar of oil from next to her and holds it out. “Take what you need.”

He opens the jar while she’s holding it, their hands touching and sending a hot thrill through her, then Jindosh dips a couple fingers in and slicks up his hand. The oil has a faintly sweet fragrance to it, but it doesn’t linger. Emily puts the lid back on and sets the jar aside, the movement making her shirt rub uncomfortably against her tight nipples. 

“Stroke your cock,” she says. “Slowly,” and silently cheers herself for being able to say ‘cock’ aloud this time around. 

Jindosh grips himself and follows her command exactly. His breathing heavy, and his eyes lidded as he watches first his shinning cock sliding in and out of his fist and then her. Oh, _fuck_ —she’s so wet right now, and she aches with arousal. After this is done, she’s going to finger herself into sweet oblivion. 

To keep her hand from wandering, Emily reaches out and touches Jindosh’s chest. He twitches, skin sensitive, but as she uses her blunt nails to gently scratch a path down his chest and through his coarse hair, he stretches and pants, eyes falling closed as he makes abortive moans. 

When her hand gets close to the juncture of his thighs, Jindosh’s free hand grasps her wrist, the ceramic of his prothesis warm against her skin. She expects him to move her hand to his cock, but all he does is hold it still like he needs to touch her to ground himself. Emily sways a little closer, wanting so badly to kiss him, but not quite able to bring herself to cross that last line. 

“Faster,” she tells him, voice low and intimate.

Jindosh fully moans at that and picks up his pace, lingering slightly at the head of his cock on the upstroke. Emily drinks the sight in; it’s even better than last time. He’s stretched so taught, all his lean muscles on display, shaking with the effort, eyes twisted closed against the overwhelming sensation of it all. The red slash of his mouth wet and shining, and _Void_ she wants to kiss him so badly she trembles with the want of it. 

This moment is the only thing she can truly enjoy about having command of him, and she’d gladly give everything else up if she could only keep _this._

He starts panting unevenly, and his hand is losing its rhythm, so she knows he’s close. Emily debates for a moment, letting him finish in his own time, but that isn’t the point of this. She’s got to pack as many commands into this as possible, so she curls her fingers into his abdomen and says,

“ _Kirin._ ”

He makes a low noise of pleasure that thrills through her, and his dark eyes open to look at her. 

“Come.”

Jindosh chokes in surprise, eyes going wide as the command registers, and then they clamp closed again as he whimpers and arches beautifully on the bed. The sight of him steals the very breath from her lungs. 

When he has enough presence of mind to let go of her wrist, Emily wipes it on the coverlet without a thought and then brings her hand up to touch the side of his face. Gently swiping over his lips before sliding around and into his hair. Stroking through it and murmuring faint praise.

As his panting breaths ease, he opens his eyes to look at her. She barely has time to process the blatant desire on his face before he leans across the distance between them and kisses her. Her shock keeps her from doing anything for a split second before she opens her mouth with a hungry noise and kisses back. 

She uses the hand she had on Jindosh’s head to control the kiss, and he lets her. Then, one of his hands suddenly cups her cunt, the heat of it bleeding through her trousers. Emily gasps, breaking their kiss. 

“Can I?” he asks, voice sinfully rough and low. 

“Void, _yes._ ” 

Emily’s hands fly to her trouser button and fasteners, fumbling to get them undone. Jindosh moves his hand out of the way to better facilitate her efforts. However, he kisses her in starts and stops, distracting her from the task at hand. When they’re finally undone, she shimmies her trousers and knickers down far enough for Jindosh to comfortably reach her. 

When his hand returns, Emily almost jumps. The heat of it is scorching without the layers between them. The skin of his fingers is rough and calloused from his work, but he’s gentle as he strokes along the seam of her lips before sinking one finger into her. 

Emily moans into Jindosh’s mouth. 

“You’re _soaking,_ ” he says with some surprise and drags the finger out and up to her clit, where he uses two fingers to rub small circles. 

“I know. Watching you…” her breath hitches and she clamps her hand down on the back of Jindosh’s neck, arching her back and rocking her hips into his hand. 

“Watching me, what?” he asks, nosing along her neck, pausing long enough to dip another finger back in her for some more of her slick before rubbing her clit once again. 

“…makes me wet.” Emily drags her hand into Jindosh’s hair and pulls his head back far enough, so he must look at her. “Make me come.”

He shudders at that command and then nods. His fingers move faster, and Emily’s legs twitch, her whole body going taut in anticipation. That shinning, electric feeling starts creeping over her, skin tingling with the promised force it, and Emily’s brain stutters to a stop. As she crests the peak, she moans, and Jindosh moves his mouth to capture hers again, perhaps wanting to taste the sound.

Everything after that disappears into white noise.

///

Emily doesn’t see Jindosh again after her bath in lukewarm water, and thus leaves the Clockwork Mansion with Megan without speaking to him. Which, considering the maelstrom of her emotions right now, is probably for the best. She’s swinging back and forth between contentedly relaxed and panicked tenseness, and she has no idea what might come out of her mouth if she saw Jindosh again. 

Frankly, she’s more than a little worried that she’d press him against the nearest wall and command him to eat her out. That conjures an accompanying mental image that makes her flush and ache, so Emily turns her face to the rush of cool air barrelling by the carriage as it descends into Lower Aventa. The prickly sensation of Megan’s eyes on her has Emily steadfastly watching the lights in the distance. When they shoot through the wind barricade, Emily gratefully pulls herself from the carriage with her Far Reach. Landing gracefully this time atop a lamppost. 

She meets up with Megan again near the exit to the docks, the thrill of exertion making her blood sing pleasantly and wiping the sensation of Jindosh from her skin. It has her more than a little excited to set out on the last phase of her time in Karnaca. 

Delilah’s time as Empress is rapidly drawing to close, Emily will make sure of that. 

When they finally reach the _Dreadful Wale,_ Sokolov is waiting for them and casts a line down to help get them in position to be winched up to deck level. The spotlight is turned on them as Megan and Emily work together to get the skiff sorted, the light making the surrounding waters look like the blackest of inks. Sokolov runs the motor to haul them up, and Emily gathers her things. 

It feels like an age since she’s set foot on this ship, and while Emily isn’t exactly glad to be back, she _is_ happy to see Sokolov again. She gives him a warm hug. 

“Ah, I’ve missed you,” he says simply, arms strong around her and Emily smiles. 

“I’ve missed you too, Anton.”

“Come. Let us have a drink, and you can tell me all about your recent trials with Kirin.” He laughs. 

Emily’s smile gets a little wooden at that, but she tries to keep her voice light. “Alright, but only a few. I have work to do tomorrow.”

“One bottle,” Megan warns sternly. “If she’s hungover, you can take her on the skiff.”

Sokolov scoffs dismissively. “Never mind, Megan. Now, come, my dear, let’s talk.”

When they are settled down in the War Room, a bottle of red wine opened between them, Emily realizes that she should have anticipated more than mere gossip between friends. 

“I see you’ve survived each other. Tell me, how is Kirin?”

“He was fine when I left,” Emily replies stiffly, thoughts mercilessly drug back to that moment of post-coital bliss they shared before she abruptly left for her bath. “Though, an unforeseen…side-effect has made itself known.”

“Oh?” Sokolov says as he pours them both large glasses. 

She can’t see much point in telling Sokolov about this as he isn’t likely to have a solution she hadn’t already thought of and discarded, but there’s a childish desire for comfort in the idea that he _might._

Emily picks her glass up and stares at it a moment. “He now _needs_ commands or he gets…unstable. It happened a week or so in, and it reminded me of blood fever, but he was still coherent. He destroyed his electroshock machine, so I’d have to tell him to stop.”

Sokolov’s eyebrows raise. “Interesting reaction.”

She sighs and explains his machine did to his brain and how The Outsider stopped the decay with a Mark. “The need for commands was the trade-off.”

“The Outsider never gives anything for free. You do well to remember that, my dear.”

Emily nods and then downs her glass in three long swallows, the dry wine burning her mouth and throat slightly. Sokolov makes a noise of amusement and pours her another glass full. 

“So then, with this revelation, what’re you going to do about him when you return to Dunwall?” Sokolov sits back in his chair and takes a sip of his wine. 

“Well, I have to take him with me, don’t I? There is no other choice. I can’t leave him the way he was that night. I’m not that cruel.”

Sokolov nods, though it seems more in acknowledgement than agreement, and waits for her to continue. 

“I agreed to help him obtain his Master’s of Engineering in exchange for his help with Delilah. And after I realized what was going on with the…rest, I said I’d make him Royal Inventor after he gets his Master’s in exchange for some information.”

Sokolov chuckles. “His expulsion? Bravo. You mitigated its use as leverage. So, what do you make of Kirin now?”

“I…don’t know. Is it even the truth? If it is, I am very sorry about what happened. but from what I was told, he was unjustly expelled.” She sighs.

“He was. I didn’t agree and voted against it, but the Academy has always been more concerned with money than true scientific discovery. And Kirin made many enemies during his time.”

Emily nods, feeling a little better about her assessment. “Why doesn't that surprise me? That said, I’ve come to _grudgingly_ enjoy his company. When he’s not a total prat,” she mutters. “He’s useful, in any case, and promises to keep being so, as long as I supply incentive.”

“Such as?” Sokolov asks as he gives her look that says she’s better not be bending to Jindosh’s every whim. 

It almost makes her laugh. 

“There isn’t much now, but I did mention the Academy coming up with a new method of refining aluminium, which he was highly interested in, so I think those sorts of things are probably what he’ll want. Along with his clockwork soldiers staying in production, but I haven’t decided on that,” Emily replies and leans forward, putting her elbow on her thighs and twisting her signet ring. 

“Hmm. Well, it’s not ideal, but it’ll do. Seems almost a shame you two couldn’t have come to such an agreement earlier and saved all this trouble.”

“I had a similar thought, not that it matters now.”

They fall into silence after that; however, she can feel Sokolov’s eyes on her, assessing her, and Emily both dreads and hopes he might prod further. She feels like she might explode if she doesn’t speak with someone about what’s happened, and yet fears the reaction she might garner. 

“What troubles you?” Sokolov finally asks, and Emily can’t help the manic burst of laughter at that question. 

“What doesn’t trouble me? I feel that’s the shorter list.”

He ignores her dodge and probes right at the heart of her current problem. “Kirin?”

Emily ducks her head. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that. Jindosh is easier to deal with. Kirin is…”

“A person instead of a problem?”

“Oh, he’s definitely that.” She laughs again, fearing she might scream if she doesn’t. “I…we— _Abbey._ ”

Sokolov is quiet, still watching her. He must know what she means to say, it’s so apparent, but he’s going to let her flounder through it on her own. She deserves that she supposes. 

Emily takes a shaky breath and quietly says, “I’ve been unfaithful to Wyman.”

There’s more silence. 

“If you’re looking to me to condemn your actions, my dear, you must have forgotten my own history of affairs. Indeed, I never did believe it in your best interest to tie yourself to a single person so young, especially with such a power-hungry family.” He sighs. “I can’t say Kirin is any better and given your situation with him, it’s perhaps not the best decision, but the choice is yours, and I will never judge you for it.”

She flops back in her chair, running a hand over face. “What is _wrong_ with me? I feel like I’m spiralling.”

Sokolov chuckles softly. “Not from what I can see. You’re holding up exceptionally well.”

Emily makes a noncommittal noise and takes a gulp of her wine. “What will I tell Wyman?”

“Nothing. Unless you think you might like to fuck Kirin long term?”

She covers her face in mortification. Sokolov was always crude at the worst possible times. “No. Yes—Maybe.”

“In which case, still nothing. Gently break with Wyman if it comes to that. And if you learn anything from my mistakes with lovers, learn this: any justification you might make to them to ease your conscience will only hurt them. Keep your mouth shut.”

Emily sighs and then nods in understanding. Sokolov takes pity on her and changes the subject to the Dust District, and they talk through another two glasses of wine.

///

The next morning, Emily and Megan motor off for the Dust District. The noise of the skiff prohibits conversations, so Emily doesn’t know anything further about the friend until they arrive in the sewer under the district and coast along at low rpms. 

“So, who am I meeting?” Emily asks, giving her gear one last look over in an attempt to calm her jangling nerves.

“Lucia Pastor. Aramis introduced me to her some years ago, and I did some work for her. After her husband died in a mining accident some ten years ago, she began advocating for the miners. When Aramis was…around, they worked to better mining conditions and keep the district prosperous. Now, it’s a shithole, and she can’t get any answers from the Duke about Aramis or any traction about working conditions the miners now suffer.”

Megan gives her a sharp look before continuing. “This shit can’t just be about you getting the crown back; you’ve got to step up and fix things like this, else what’s the point of all this? Just exchanging one tyrant for another doesn’t cut it. So, help her, and she’ll help you. Maybe then you’ll be worth the weight of the thing.”

Emily can’t help but be a little surprised by Megan’s words. She’s never really shown any feeling one way or another about the current situation and Emily’s bid to get the crown back except to stop Delilah. 

“Okay. I’ll do what I can.”

Megan nods once and focuses on steering the skiff to a dock. 

When Emily has the skiff tied off, they disembark, and Megan leads her through the sewers and up to street level. Then they head through an abandoned building filled nearly to the brim with dust. Emily can scarcely believe there’s so much of it. It’s so fine and powdery that she worries about getting swallowed up in it. 

“Guess I understand the name now,” Emily says as they climb a dust hill to the building’s second story. She recalls the sign she saw in the sewers that named this as the Batista Mining District that was painted over with red lettering renaming it _Dust District._

“It wasn’t like this before,” Megan replies. “Aramis keep tight and humane hours for mining, so the silver dust was much less and easier to deal with. Miners worked in rotating shifts, so no one was down in the dust of the mines for too long. Now Abele works the mines 24/7. There’s no rest, and the dust is taking over everything. Even the surrounding districts. This used to be Lucia’s office.”

Emily has to choke down on a noise of dismay. This had been happening under her nose. All while she was too busy drinking expensive wine out of silver goblets and laughing at the schmoozing nobles with Wyman behind their backs. She claimed to hate everything that people like Abele stood for, and yet she never lifted a finger to stop them when she had the power to do just that. 

Megan crosses the partial section of the second floor that’s still intact and then lightly drops out of a smashed window to the street level below. Emily is a little worried about how she fared until she sees Megan utterly unharmed below. She follows suit. 

“Couldn’t be bothered to take the stairs, Megan?” an amused voice asks from behind them, and a tall, slender woman steps out from the shadow of a stoop. 

“Grand Guard is crawling all over the entrance to the district. And stairs are boring.”

The woman squeezes Megan’s arm in greeting before turning her gaze to Emily, gaze hard. “So, this is her. Well, I suppose her eyes are the same as the painting. Can’t say the same for the rest of her face.”

There’s a moment when Emily feels a little self-conscious and almost lowers her scarf, but they’re out in the open, so she thinks better of it. 

“Sokolov painted it; what did you expect?”

“Nothing. I only hoped for a continence that was easy to hate.” The woman crosses her arms. “You mean to find Aramis, do you?”

“If he can be found,” Emily replies. 

The ease of her continence immediately goes flat and hard. “He can’t, and you won’t find him. Aramis is _gone._ ” Lucia practically spits that last word.

“They still send food in there—”

“Oh _wake up,_ Megan. If Aramis were in there in any recognizable fashion, would the district look like this?” She gestures with her arms to the small courtyard they’re in. “He’d be mortified to see what Batista has fallen to. He loved this place, these mines, _the workers._ And if Abele thinks he can keep us in line through Aramis’ memory alone, he’s sorely mistaken.”

For the first time since they met, there’s unchecked emotion on Megan’s face. She looks absolutely _crushed._ Emily can’t bear to look at it and turns her face away. 

There’s a sigh of remorse from Lucia, and she touches Megan’s arm again. “I know you cared for him, but Aramis is gone, and we’ve got to learn to deal with that.”

Megan makes an abortive nod. “Abele will swing for this.”

“I’ll make sure the punishment fits the crime,” Emily says quietly.

“He _must_ die,” Megan growls.

Lucia gently touches the side of Megan’s face. “There are worst things than death.”

Emily is a little embarrassed to be witnessing this as it seems things have taken a sudden turn to something more intimate. Abbey, she’s learned more about Megan in the last five minutes than she has in the previous three months. She turns bodily away to give them a moment, studying the dusty and dirty courtyard. 

After a few moments, Megan says to her back, “Finding out what happened to Aramis won’t fix the district’s problems.”

Emily turns toward them, waiting for elaboration.

“Gang warfare is ripping Batista apart just as surely as Abele’s inhumane work hours,” Lucia says. “The Howlers and the Overseers are fighting over territory, and while I can understand where the Howlers are coming from, the Overseers are dangerous zealots that would see us all dead for turning outside the Abbey for aid.”

Lucia’s words make her Mark itch, but Emily can’t tell if the woman means spiritual or physical aid. Perhaps it’s both. 

“Your knowledge of this area clearly trumps mine. What are you suggesting I do?”

“They both need to be stopped. Understanding the Howlers doesn’t mean I agree with their bullshit. You’ve blood enough on your hands already; two more gang leaders won’t make much of a difference.”

Emily stiffens at that but can’t find it in her to refute it. It stings. 

“We’ve all got blood on our hands,” Megan says, “Don’t purport to be better than Emily when you’re the one asking her to kill.”

Lucia huffs and crosses her arms but says nothing in reply. 

“Just get rid of them,” Megan tells Emily. “The district will be better for it. And watch out for Paolo. They say he can only be killed if struck twice before the sun sets.”

///

Emily decides to scout the district first and see what is really going on. She doesn’t distrust Lucia’s or Megan’s word, but they’ve asked a heavy burden of her, and damn if she’s going to do anything before seeing first-hand how the situation is between the Howlers and the Overseers. 

And well…it’s not great. 

She wouldn’t call it Rat Plague bad or anything, especially since the silver dust seems to choke out the blood fever flies—which is a plus in a horrible situation.

On the way to the Overseer’s territory, Emily gets distracted by a portrait studio claiming to be able to take silvergraphs, and she can’t help the immense curiosity that comes over her. She picks the lock to study the pictures and tells herself that it isn’t about Jindosh. However, when she starts seriously wondering if she could talk Jindosh into explaining the process to her, Emily sighs and gives up pretending otherwise. 

Ever since she broke into his mansion, Jindosh had been about two steps from all her immediate thoughts at any given time. 

Her foray into the studio does end up being of benefit when she finds several large crates and a note talking about slave trading members of the district into the mines. As horrified as she is by this, it gives her an idea. This slaver wants people from the district? Oh, she’ll give it to him, and then make sure that will be his last cargo.

Taking out Vice Overseer Byrne is surprisingly easy. 

The Overseers are much too comfortable in their little base and don’t expect anyone to attack them directly. Emily does have to watch out for their wolfhounds, but as long as she’s high enough and moves quickly, they don’t know what they’ve caught the scent of, and their masters are none the wiser. 

The old office building that they’ve repurposed as their base in the district is full of places to hide and move out of sight, and Emily uses them to systematically knock out the Overseers milling around. She needs an easy and fast escape route once she’s dealt with Byrne, and direct is best when you have to carry an unconscious man back several blocks to the silvergraph studio you broke into. 

Which, as far as plans go, isn’t her best. The bastard is _heavy_ , and Emily hasn’t done anything genuinely strenuous for the past two months, so her level of stamina is significantly reduced. She keeps abusing her Far Reach to help pull her along, and though it makes the task a bit easier, it also taxes her mentally as it requires a fair bit of concentration to channel the magic into doing her bidding. 

When Byrne is deposited into his crate, Emily takes a moment to rest and pulls some water and food from her bag. As she eats, she seriously considers simply killing Paolo because the thought of hauling another heavy body back here has her muscles crying out for mercy and a headache flaring. It’s already the middle of the day, and she hasn’t yet stepped foot in Stilton’s mansion. 

That’s the whole reason she’s here. 

Jindosh would probably laugh at her for trying to spare the lives of these two and likely point out that tossing them in the mines for slavery isn’t much better than flat out killing them. 

Then, Emily remembers what Lucia said about the blood on her hands, and she hauls herself up. The mines won’t be forever controlled by Abele if she has anything to say about it, so tossing Byrne and Paolo down there is more akin to a prison sentence. And that _is_ better than death. 

Howler territory is the worst part of the district, and unlike the Overseers, they’re more spread out, so taking them out is more straightforward. The time she makes it down to the bar that they call their home base, there’s only four of them left conscious, including their leader Paolo. 

Megan’s warning and the shrine she found in Paolo’s private room, make her wary about facing him one on one, let alone with the last of his crew. From her vantage point on the balcony, she can see that their drinking and singing has them well occupied, so if she offers the couple of whalebone runes she nicked from the Overseers, they probably won’t be any the wiser.

When she kneels at the shrine, the Void almost immediately rushes up around her so fast that it steals her breath and makes her gasp for air. She coughs and tries to stand. From a rock formation some fifteen out, The Outsider watches her with a bored expression. 

“You brought an offering this time, I see.”

“I thought I’d try and make up for my past mistake.”

“Wise. What do you seek?”

Emily isn’t entirely sure how favourably The Outsider views others with his Mark. So, she decides against asking for something to be done about Paolo’s ability and instead inquires about her own. 

“Is there any way for me to…incapacitate a large group of people?”

He tilts his head, suddenly interested, and gives her a faint sort of smile before disappearing in a smattering of ash and splinters. He reappears on her island and says, “How do you reach across gaps?”

Emily frowns slightly but plays along. She should’ve known better than to get a straight answer. She opens her mouth to speak and then closes it when she realizes that she doesn’t actually _know._

The Outsider’s smile gets wider. 

“How do you see through walls? How do you find a single heartbeat in a crowd? Disappear like smoke?”

“I’m…not certain.” 

The Outsider folds his hands behind his back and watches her. Silent. 

Emily thinks for a moment, recalling how she goes about each of those things. After a few beats of silence, she says. “I don’t know how, only that when I want to, it happens.”

“And thus, you’ve answered your own question.”

The Void vanishes as quickly as it appeared, leaving Emily reeling as she’s thrown back into her body. She’s uncertain if she’ll ever get used to the sensation of travelling to and from the Void, but at least she got an answer.

She returns to the balcony. 

The Howlers are still carrying on below, but they won’t be if she stands here too long. Readying herself, Emily thinks about what she wants to happen and holds her Marked hand out to help facilitate the direction of the magic. As she concentrates, there’s the sensation of heat and energy (she’s never really been able to explain it any other way) pooling in her hand, then like it does when she uses her far reach, it leaps out and manifests her will. 

A giant crystalline formation appears below in the courtyard of the bar. The Howlers below let out varying degrees of shouts at the sudden appearance of the crystal before they are mesmerized and drawn in by the crystal’s large singular eye. 

Emily stares in surprise at the thing as it drops the dazed Howlers one by one into unconsciousness. Paolo is the last to fall, able to fight against the creature’s hold before he too falls. As he goes down, she braces for some sort of strangeness but is still utterly shocked when Paolo’s unconscious body abruptly bursts into two dozen rats that scurry away. 

“What the fuck?” Emily whispers and pulls herself down to the courtyard with barely a thought. 

The crystalline creature watches her with its singular mournful eye, and Emily gives it a nod of thanks before sending it back to whatever recess of the Void it came from. Its level of intelligence is anyone’s guess, but she may need it’s aid again and keeping on its good side is of benefit to her. 

Then she walks through the cluster bodies near the bartop to where Paolo fell to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her just now, but there’s no trace of him or the rats. 

A shiver runs up her spine suddenly, and Emily turns to face the balcony she just left. Paolo stalks through the open doorway, looking furious and faintly otherworldly. 

“You think you can fuck with me and get away with it?” he snarls at her, raising a pistol. 

“That was the idea, yes.”

Paolo bares his teeth and fires his gun. Emily doesn’t bother moving. She knows the bullet will miss her. It sails over her left shoulder, close enough that she can feel the wind of it as it passes by her face. Paolo frowns and fires again. The second bullet passes by her right arm, and Paolo makes a noise of annoyance and drops his pistol on the floor. 

“I’ll make good use of that charm when I take it from your corpse,” he tells her and drops from the balcony to the courtyard as nimbly as a cat. 

Emily readies her crossbow and sword. The point isn’t to kill him (she’s got tranquillizer darts loaded in her crossbow), but he is stalking towards her with a sword of his own. He’s made it perfectly clear he’s going to try and kill her, and she will defend herself. 

She fires her crossbow him hoping to end this fight. However, to her annoyance but lessening surprise, Paolo knocks it out of the air with the flat of his blade. 

When he’s about ten feet out, Paolo charges her with inhuman speed, and it’s all Emily can do to block his sword as it arcs through the air towards her. He’s relentless in his strikes, bashing against her sword with little finesse and all brute force. She has to drop her crossbow to put both hands on her blade to keep him at bay. Paolo drives her backward as he smashes his sword into her, and Emily curses herself, Lucia, The Outsider, and anyone else that comes to mind that she’s managed to get herself into this situation. 

Eventually, she stumbles over the body of one of Paolo’s Howlers and barely manages to keep her footing. The upset is enough to distract her from blocking Paolo’s blade, and he thrusts it at her ribs. There’s a fleeting moment when despair washes over her for this being the end, and she awaits the sharp sting of steel.

Except, Paolo’s blade glances off the corselet’s thick leather and finds its home fruitlessly between her torso and arm. 

With a heady rush of elation, Emily takes the opportunity to smash the hilt of her sword on Paolo’s hand, forcing him to drop his blade with a yelp, and cracks her forehead against his nose to drive him back. He howls in pain, stumbling back, hands coming up to cradle his gushing nose, and Emily stalks forward after him. As she nears him, ready to sweep his legs out from under him, Paolo disappears, the air around him folding in on itself. She stops, curses, and spins around, looking for where he might have disappeared to. 

Then, very faintly, she hears the creak of a leather shoe behind her and Emily whirls. Blindly, she thrusts her blade forward with all of her strength into a shocked Paolo. The dagger he was holding raised to stab her, clatters to the ground. Emily pulls her sword from his chest, and Paolo collapses. 

Dead. 

“ _Fuck._ ”

///

Only Jindosh would be enough of an egomaniacal prat to leave a riddle behind to solve the lock that keeps people out of Aramis Stilton’s mansion. 

If she had more time, Emily might be tempted to solve it with the use of the riddle just to prove how dumb it was to leave it there. However, time is short, and her patience is running even shorter. She uses the key that Jindosh scrawled for her and arranges the symbols to match the ladies' names. 

With that out of the way, Emily heads inside, locking the door behind her. She noted the various tools and gear left by some would-be burglars, and she doesn’t wish to be interrupted. 

The antechamber through the windbreak opens into a large courtyard that has been half-filled with silver dust has long-dead trees and plants poking out of it here and there. The whole area grey and awful, and there’s something wrong about it besides. Emily feels tired and drained, beyond what she was already feeling after killing Paolo. 

The tear Jindosh mentioned must be to blame, and Emily picks up her pace. 

Inside, the mansion is in terrible repair. It’s falling apart from neglect and ransacking—undoubtedly before Jindosh's lock. The plant life that had been so lacking in the courtyard is taking over here. Growing through the ill-kept grout and dust that has managed to find its way inside. The wind howls against the breaks and building trembles with it. 

Then, above the noise, she hears a muttering voice and follows it to the source. 

Going right down a side hall, Emily carefully walks, watching her surroundings as the voice becomes stronger.

“We’ll be starting soon. The Duke’s beloved will be coming back.”

Was that Stilton?

At the end of the hall, there’s an open doorway that’s been made into a prison door by several bare bed frames stacked atop one another, creating makeshift bars and held in place by crude fastenings. Emily peers through them and the stench of an unwashed body makes her eyes water. Blinking back the tears, Emily can see a shadow on the wall, but not the man himself. She calls out to him. 

“Aramis?”

There’s a moment of silence, then, “There are whales down in the mines! I hear them howling to one another. Great swollen beasts.”

“Aramis, is that you?”

“How did I get so _old?_ Where are the men of my younger days?”

Emily sighs. This is getting her nowhere. Either he can’t hear her, or something worse has happened to him. She must get in that room. The bedframes look too sturdy to be easily torn down, but beyond them, she can see a giant hole in the ceiling leading to a room above, so if she can get up there, she should be able to drop down inside. 

Emily backtracks to the foyer and to the staircase she first saw when she entered. Most of the rooms are blocked off with heavy iron gates and furniture pushed up against them, and it leaves little choice on which way to go. At the top of the stairs, she tries to orient herself and find the right path to the room above the prison. Much of this area is collapsed and blocked off as well another hall, but as she wanders, Emily can hear Stilton’s voice carry along the walls. 

As she follows his voice, her eyebrows raise in surprise. He’s babbling nonsense, words that put together barely make coherent sentences. She starts to doubt she’ll get anything of use from Stilton. He sounds completely cracked. 

There is room at the end of a hall. It looks to be what's left of the master bedroom. From here, Emily can see down into the prison room and spies Stilton sitting at a piano, playing keys that only vaguely work. Carefully, she crouches and then drops into the room. 

Slowly, so she doesn’t frighten him, Emily approaches Stilton. 

“Aramis? Aramis Stilton?”

“Theo, warm the quilts, will you?—” Stilton’s voice warps and slows suddenly. 

Time stands still once again; colour leeched from every surrounding save for herself and The Outsider now sitting atop Stilton’s piano. She pulls her scarf down. 

“Three years ago, something inside Aramis Stilton snapped like a cheap lock. A part of him and a part of this house never left that evening.”

The Outsider hops off the piano and paces beside it, starting at the walls as if they were the most compelling things in the space. 

“The Duke’s inner circle is still gathered here, setting their grand plan into motion. Delilah’s plan. And, a part of Aramis Stilton is always here, still breaking.”

He stops and looks at her. 

“The Void is not exactly a place, and it’s much older and stranger than you could possibly know. It watches you from within.”

Emily shivers.

“And at the heart of Stilton’s house, the Void is leaking through a pinprick left behind by Delilah’s little _trick._ ” A dark look crosses The Outsider’s face then, and it’s truly terrible to behold. “Even magic is perverted here, and things don’t work like they should.”

He moves toward her, face smoothing out and pulls a strange metal device from the air around them. He hands it to her, black eyes boring into hers. 

“Take this. Imagine it’s a kind of timepiece. Go and watch the Duke and Delilah. See for yourself what they did.”

The Outsider vanishes then, a smattering to ash and wood hanging momentarily in the air, frozen before time resumes with a jolt, and they disintegrate like so much smoke. 

Stilton’s voice suddenly resumes. 

“—I feel like it's going to be cold tonight.”

It’s clear he’s in no fit shape to tell her anything about what happened three years ago, so Emily ignores Stilton and focuses on the timepiece The Outsider gifted her. It’s a woven metal glove of sorts, with a spinning bone charming floating in the middle. Atop it is three glass feather-like pieces that can fold and unfold with the motion of her fingers working a lever. 

When unfolded, the glass feathers show a room untarnished by time. Is that the past? Emily is gobsmacked by the implication of it. Staring through the glass, she moves about the place, looking at its previous glory. As she turns back to the center of the room, where the piano is situated, Emily stops in utter surprise. 

Through the glass, she sees Jindosh seated at the piano playing a song she can’t hear. Emily peers around the glass feathers to see Stilton in the same spot here in the present and feels a giddy rush of excitement. This is truly the past! She might be able to change how things went down, perhaps she could even stop Delilah, or…

_Jindosh_ is seated at the piano. 

With little more than a thought, Emily moves through time to appear in the past. 

Now she can hear the song he’s playing, it’s the same one that plays on his audiographs, but sounds odd given that the metallic quality is lacking. The ceramic of his prothesis clacks sharply on the keys every time his forefinger and thumb strike their notes. In the glass feathers, she can see the present, where Stilton is still peaking away at an instrument that barely functions anymore. 

Emily folds the glass away. The noise of it is lost to the music. 

A feeling of _hope_ suddenly wells up in her. She’d scarce believed she’d ever feel that again. Everything seemed so bleak before. She was running on pure fear and rage, and now she’s found her footing again. This night, this past, this _moment_ can change. 

She can change it all. 

“Kirin…”

Abruptly the music stops, and Emily realizes she spoke aloud. Her breath stops.

Jindosh turns on the bench, an uncertain and questioning look on his face until he catches sight of her, then it becomes unadulterated surprise. Silence stretches between them for what feels like an age before Jindosh abruptly stands from the bench, nearly knocking it over, and gives her a hasty half bow. 

“Your Majesty! I…didn’t know you were in town.”

Emily bursts into hysterical laughter at that. Jindosh’s expression gets a little wild, and that only makes her laugh harder. 

She starts to have trouble breathing and laughing at the same time. Jindosh only stares at her, like a deer frozen at the sight of a hunter. With great effort, Emily chokes down some air in great gulps and gets control of herself. 

“Three years from now, you’re going to realize why that was so funny,” she says, still breathless and close to breaking out into laughter again. 

Jindosh’s eyes narrow. “You know the future?”

“Mine? No. Yours? Yes. And unless you want to end up strapped into your electroshock machine and made my servant, you’d better listen to what I have to say.”

“How did you know…?” Jindosh takes half a step back, eyes darting to the door. “Spying on me, are we?”

“As of right now, past me cares so little about you, Jindosh, that you don’t even warrant a discussion about upgrading from Sokolov’s technology to yours.”

It’s a neat little dig that she’s sure will garner the reaction she wants. These past few months have given her a relatively good understanding of his character. 

He scoffs, crossing his arms. “As if that weren’t abundantly clear.” Then he gives her a hard look. “ _Past_ you?”

Emily can’t help the slight smile that breaks out. Trust Jindosh to infinitely curious, even with the most outlandish of statements. 

“Yes. For me, this is the past. I’m from three years from now when Delilah has made her play for my throne and cast me out to perish in what she images is fitting revenge on her own shitty father. Now I’m here, dismantling her cabal.” 

She stalks forward.

“I’ve freed Alexandra from her curse of the Crown Killer. Handed Ashworth over to the Overseers for your little experiment with the Oracular Order. Used your electroshock machine against you to great effect. Now I’m trying to figure out what happened here that caused Aramis Stilton to lose his mind and create a tear to the Void.”

She backs Jindosh right into the piano as he stares at her in greater and greater surprise as she lists all the things she now knows about his future. When his one hand moves to steady himself, he strikes a discord of keys that makes him jump a little. 

“Uh…well, you seem to have me at a disadvantage…”

“Considering how this ends up, turn about is fair play, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose.” Jindosh moves to straighten, and Emily backs up enough to give him the space needed. “If you really are from the future, as dubious as a claim that is, what is it that you’re hoping to achieve here tonight?”

“To stop Delilah. If that can’t be done, then to learn as much and _change_ as much as I can. Anything to weaken her position.”

Jindosh gives her a dark look. “If you think you can just frighten me into doing your biding—”

Emily puts a hand up to stop him. “I know you don’t do anything for free. We’ve already had this conversation. So, I’ll offer you what I offered your future-self. You help me defeat Delilah by supplying all the intel you can on her, her activities, and her allies here in Karnaca and elsewhere, and I will get you readmission to the Academy. Once you've obtained your Master’s of Engineering, I will make you my Royal Inventor—provided, of course, I don’t perish defeating Delilah.”

Jindosh’s expression changes to one of confusion like he can’t quite understand why Emily is offering all these things. Then it becomes closed skepticism.

“First of all, where’s your proof? You say these things like you know exactly what will happen, but you can’t honestly expect me to believe you’re from the future. Secondly, what makes you think that I don’t already have a similar agreement with Delilah and Breanna?”

“I don’t, but you should know as well as I, that even if you did have such an agreement, Delilah will renege on it as soon as possible. They only want you because you are going to help them build the Oraculum, but beyond that, they care nothing for you or Alexandria or Aramis or Abele or even the whole of the Empire. When Delilah has what she wants, she will forget everyone who ever got her there.”

He purses his lips, and his expression is one of grim confirmation. Clearly, he’d already had similar thoughts. 

“A greater understanding of magic was to be my payment for helping with Breanna’s project. Will I get that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. You never told me about it, but when you did mention the project, it was with genuine pride, so I imagine that you do. Likely because they don’t think it will matter in the end.”

“Good.”

Emily doesn’t bother trying to convince Jindosh to not build the Oraculum, that would not end up working in her favour. Instead, she negotiates to mitigate the fallout of that night. 

“When I destroyed the Oraculum, it was on your suggestion of damaging its lens, which caused a feedback of sorts in the magical output of the device and severed Ashworth’s connection to Delilah and the Void, rendering her without magic. However, I regret not killing her outright, so perhaps you might make it so that such feedback would kill her? I know of something the Academy is working on that might be of interest to you.”

Jindosh raises an eyebrow. “You still haven’t furnished me with proof.”

Emily moves so that she’s standing beside Jindosh and opens the glass feathers on the timepiece. He gives her a skeptical look before the image in the glass catches his eye. The ruined room of Emily’s present is a stark contrast to the warm and bright place that the past is. Jindosh stares, cautiously amazed as Emily turns and sweeps her arm about the room until she lands on Stilton, sitting at the very piano Jindosh was moments before. 

“Aramis?” Jindosh mutters in disbelief and grabs hold of Emily’s arm to keep the timepiece exactly there. She tolerates it for a moment, then, with some concentration, moves both of them into the future. 

Jindosh starts and stares in surprise at the shambled mess around them, eyes flitting from every bit of change between this room and last. When they land again on Stilton, he moves forward, dropping Emily’s arm. As he rounds the piano bench to face Stilton proper, a look of horror grows on his face. 

“Aramis?” he says quietly.

Stilton’s disjointed playing abruptly stops, much like Jindosh’s had a moment ago.

Stilton looks up from the piano, eyes widening in recognition, the blank look of confusion that had marked his face before, lifting. 

“Kirin?” He stands and looks Jindosh over, face becoming worried. “Are you trapped here too?” Stilton moves toward Jindosh, who takes a hesitant step back. “Have you seen my servants? My guards?” Stilton darts forward and grabs Jindosh’s arms in his large hands.

Emily takes a lurching step forward, not entirely sure what Stilton might do. 

Jindosh makes a quick cutting motion with one hand and lets Stilton hold him in place. Emily stays still, one hand moving to her sword, ready to act if need be. 

“Why am I all alone in this house?” Stilton demands brokenly, clarity of mind shinning through. It’s almost worse than the insanity of the moment before. 

“I don’t know,” Jindosh replies lowly, face slightly wary. “But I’ll get you out of here. One way or another.”

“Go to Dunwall and tell the Empress that the Duke is the garden digging up corpses. And he’s learned how to sing. She’ll know what you mean.”

Jindosh glances at her briefly before nodding in agreement. “Of course. I’ll go in the morning.”

Stilton’s grip gets tighter, and Jindosh visibly winces. Emily’s hand closes on the hilt of her blade. 

“Now, Kirin. _Now._ ”

“You’ve forgotten your strength, Aramis,” Jindosh says tightly, and Stilton’s hands pull back from his arms as though burnt.

“Forgive me. For everything.” Stilton turns back to the piano, and when he touches the first out of tune note, he appears to forget they even exist. 

Jindosh steps back toward her, furious. “What the hell is this?” he snaps, arms gesturing around them. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far, but don’t be angry with me. I’m from this moment in time, remember? Whatever happened to Stilton happened in the moment _you're_ from.”

“Well, obviously, you know me from this…time. I never told you?”

Emily almost feels like laughing again. This whole situation is utterly bizarre. “No. You couldn’t. Something about a magical binding Ashworth put on all of you here. It made it impossible for you to talk about it.”

Jindosh makes a face. “She would. Who would I have told anyways? Honestly.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. 

“Yes, yes. _You_ apparently. Still. Not without something in return.” He gives her a shrewd look. 

“Yes, the offer still stands. But this isn’t the place to talk. Let’s return,” Emily replies and holds up the timepiece again. Jindosh nods and moves to her side, touching her arm with much less force this time. 

She moves them back through time and into the past with much less effort than it took the previous two times. She must be learning to do it better with each trip. Either that or she rips the tear wider and wider every time, and that’s what makes it easier. It’s not a comforting thought, so Emily puts it out of her mind. 

“What a fascinating piece of machinery,” Jindosh muses, staring at the timepiece. “I don’t suppose you’d let me have it when this is done?”

“I might.”

“For a price, hmm? Fair enough.” Jindosh heads over to the room’s bar and pours himself a glass of whiskey. 

Emily notices his suit jack tossed over a nearby couch and wonders how long he was in here before she showed up. Jindosh holds up the bottle in question and Emily nods. A glass is poured for her. 

When she grabs it, Jindosh continues, “I’ll sabotage the Oraculum in exchange for that—” he tips his glass at the timepiece, “—and whatever bit you were going to tell me about the Academy.” 

“I need it to return to my time, so you won’t get it right away, if at all. The Outsider gave it to me for this, and I don’t know if he’ll take it back when this is done.”

“Joplin kept the heart,” he says with a shrug, not the least bit surprised that Emily is working with The Outsider. “I spent years trying to get him to let me have a look at the thing. Such a clever bit of work.”

“You made one, but it didn’t last.”

He gives her a sharp look. “How did you know that?”

Emily takes a swallow of her whiskey and set the glass down before pulling the heart out from her bag. Jindosh’s eyes go wide. 

“She told me. My mother’s soul is trapped in here. It’s probably best yours didn’t last.”

“No offence to the departed Empress, but I hardly care whose soul is trapped. Only that it works. May I?” 

Emily frowns at his words, but she’s gotten used to Jindosh’s picky empathy and hesitates only a moment before handing the heart over. He nods in thanks and gently takes it from her. 

Jindosh scrutinizes the hearts every nook and cranny, turning it over in his hands and trying to memorize it’s every detail. She doesn’t know if he plans on attempting another one, or if its just a personal curiosity about where his own went wrong. It's hard to say with him one way or another, but it considering what happens in the next three years, he’s got enough on his plate to worry about. 

“Is it your mother’s heart?” Jindosh asks, peering into the interior through the glass porthole. 

“My…mother’s heart?” Emily repeats dumbly, a stark sort of horror dawning on her. 

“Yes. You said it was her soul in here, and I wondered if perhaps that was part of the reason it works so well. The two bound together in death as in life.”

“I…uh, don’t know.”

The tightness of her words makes him look up from his inspection. There must be something wrong about her face because an almost apologetic looks crosses his. That’s a first. 

“Did you not consider?” he asks instead of an actual apology.

“No. I hadn’t. Should I have?”

“You’re carrying your mother’s soul around in your bag. One would think it might cross your mind.”

“I don’t like to think about it at all,” Emily snaps. “She’s dead, and that thing says it's her but is it? I barely remember what my mother looked like outside that stupid portrait of her, and I certainly can’t remember her voice. So maybe it’s just trying to play me. Maybe it’s not, but what in the Void am I supposed to do with a disembodied voice?”

Jindosh shrugs. “Nothing, if you don’t wish it.”

And the simple way he says it, has Emily sagging with relief. She knows her father would look at her reproachfully and ask if she’s even tried, but Emily can’t. She just _can’t._ Jindosh validated that for her, even if he didn’t mean to. 

She nods and looks away, concerned she might start tearing up over all the emotions that talking about her mother brings up. There’s an awkward moment of silence that hangs between them, then Emily composes herself and holds out a hand for the heart back. Jindosh extends his hand to give it to her but abruptly stops, staring surprised at the heart. 

Emily wonders if that’s what her face looked like the first time she heard the heart speak. 

After a moment, Jindosh gives the heart back, looking eager to be rid of it. 

“Unsettling, isn’t it?” Emily says as she tucks the heart back into her shoulder bag. 

“If you’re not expecting it, or what it says.”

“And what did she say?”

“A warning. Though, given what it was about, I can’t see it’ll matter much.” He shrugs. 

“She hasn’t been wrong yet, so I suggest listening to it.”

Jindosh gives her a tight smile. “Yes, well, in any case, we were discussing terms, were we not?”

“Terms have been made clear. If the timepiece is still in my possession, I’ll give it to you in exchange for sabotaging the Orculum, as well as the info concerning the Academy.”

“Academy now, timepiece when I see you again.”

“Shortly before Delilah storms Dunwall tower, with _your_ clockwork soldiers,” she adds harshly, “I heard about a new method of refining aluminum in a meeting with the Academy board. It was, or will be, considered a major breakthrough in the cost of aluminum, though I know nothing about the current situation.”

“It’s cost-prohibitive to refine it and thus extremely expensive.”

“Yes, you mentioned you would’ve rathered it instead of steel for your soldiers, but it was too expensive to purchase. Which is how I remembered that little tidbit in the first place.”

Jindosh is somewhat surprised by that and swirls the whiskey in his glass as a distraction. “Certainly, an interesting bit of information, and possibly useful if it can be corroborated.”

“That’s up to you.”

He nods, and Emily continues. 

“You’ll probably end up meeting your me—this current time’s me…other me.” Emily is mortified how she stumbles over that. “Because I will be returning to the moment I left, as evidenced by where we just travelled. So, the other me won’t know you or this agreement. You’ll have to wait for me, me.”

Jindosh takes a large swallow of his whiskey. “This is getting increasingly odd, but I understand. I take it you want me to help her in exchange for the things you’ll give me?”

“Yes.”

“What if you don’t remember this conversation? What if I’m the only one who recalls these things, and by the time I do them, it’s too late to get a refund, as it were.”

“It might happen. I can’t say for sure it won’t, but if you don’t help past me, she will put you in that electroshock machine and destroy your mind, so it's in your best interest to help if only to keep yourself out of that chair.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “And where’s your proof of that?”

“What proof would you like me to furnish? Do you want me to tell you that I was so _furious_ at what you’d done to Anton that I didn’t think death was good enough for you? That I put you in that machine of yours to strip your mind from you and leave you a drooling simpleton?” Emily half expects the words to come out dripping with anger and guilt, but surprisingly, they’re cold. Clinical.

Jindosh pales over so slightly, hand tightening on his tumbler. 

“The Outsider saved your carcass. He stopped time and paid us a visit; he told me how to make your machine work right. Because, no Jindosh, _you_ never did make it work right. It only tortured Anton; it didn’t turn his mind to your purpose. But with it, I made you obey _me._

“And you hated it with every fibre of your being. Promised to do whatever it took to get free of the hold I put on you. That’s how we ended up negotiating outside your compulsion, the same agreement I prosed to you here. But, you know what’s funny? As much as you claimed to hate it the compulsion, I discovered that that wasn’t strictly true.”

Emily crowds close to Jindosh, plucking the tumbler out of his hand and backing him into the bar. He gets that wild look around the corners of his eyes again as she sets down their glasses. 

“There was one aspect you enjoyed because you enjoyed it before we met in your lab, didn’t you? I told you to get on your knees, and you did. I told you to strip for me and lay bare, and you did.” Her voice drops. “I told you to stroke your cock for me, and you did.”

Jindosh swallows with an audible click.

“You _enjoyed_ it.” Emily gives him a long look, working up the gumption to continue. “And so did I.”

There’s a tense moment where they both stare at one another as those words hang between them, then someone knocks on the room’s door, and they both jump in surprise. Emily steps back as a woman’s voice calls for Stilton. 

Jindosh opens his mouth to answer, when another voice, a man, speaks to the woman. 

“I seen him on my rounds talkin’ to Farva over near the pool a bit ago, Cap’ain.”

“Someone else said he was in here playing the piano,” the woman replies. 

“Nah. I think that’s Master Jindosh in there. Or was anyways.” The man’s voice drops to a quieter tone, but they still hear it through the door. “Probably avoiding Lady Ashworth.”

“Who wouldn’t?” 

They both laugh. 

“I’ll check with Farva then,” the woman says when they’ve quieted. “And if you do actually see Master Jindosh, tell him he’s wanted in the library.”

The sound of smart footsteps head away from the door, and Emily breathes a sigh of relief. She’s not sure she could’ve darted through time fast enough to save Jindosh the trouble of an explanation. 

“Hmm. I actually was avoiding Breanna,” Jindosh says with a smirk, previous vulnerability gone. “She’s gotten so tedious as of late. Only wanting to talk about ‘when Delilah’s back,’ and not about the actual process. As if I care about some slighted bastard.” He waves a hand in annoyance.

Emily narrows her eyes. “Back from where?”

Jindosh gives her a look. “The Void.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“You didn’t…know?” he says with genuine surprise, before elaborating. “She was killed some fifteen years ago, I believe. An assassin. Breanna told the story, but honestly, I didn’t really pay attention to it.”

“How is that even possible? You can’t bring a…a…soul, person— _thing_ back from the dead.”

“Ritual magic. Though the precise details are what I’m missing.” He makes a noise of annoyance. “Typical Breanna. And obviously, you can, because you’ve met the woman. Did she seem dead at the time?”

“My father put a sword through her, and she didn’t falter,” Emily grits out.

“Immortality?” Jindosh questions, eyes lighting up.

“No. I refuse to believe that. I _will_ kill her.” Emily gestures at him. “Think of a plausible explanation.”

“Me? You’ve had much more time to consider the possibilities than—” Jindosh stops, a thought occurring to him. “That heart of yours contains your mother’s soul, yes? Keeps it here and not in the Void?”

“It would seem so.”

“Perhaps that same principle works in a …opposite manner as well. There was this horrible scarecrow sort of thing that I caught a glimpse of when I arrived before Breanna squirrelled it away. I couldn’t fathom a use for it before, but—”

“It could be a vessel. Like the heart.”

Jindosh nods. “Obviously, it wouldn’t work in the same way, but if a soul is the source of life and death, then removing it might make it impossible to die.”

“But wouldn’t removing it, in of itself, cause death?”

He shrugs. “No idea. Maybe it isn’t the same when one has already died? Now I’m doubly annoyed Breanna is holding out on me.” Jindosh muses on that for a moment before brushing it aside and refocusing on Emily. “In any case, Aramis is of immediate concern. How do we avoid that—” he gestures at the piano— “mess?”

“I figured I’d just tranquillize him and leave it at that. But if you can convince him to stay put, all the better.”

“You’d probably be better off knocking him out. I’ve tried talking sense into him for years, and it hasn’t made a difference.” Jindosh moves toward the door. “His stubbornness is most noticeably on display tonight.”

“How so?”

“The reason we aren’t at the palace tonight is that Luca knows Breanna is going to make a mess and he doesn’t want it there. Aramis is only too happy to bend over backward for our Duke.”

“Did you warn him?”

“How many times must you warn a child to stay away from the electric sockets before you just sigh and let them electrocute themselves?”

Emily opens her mouth to argue that’s needless cruelty, before closing it again when she remembers how many times Corvo warned her to stay away from the edge until she knew to catch her falls. She never listened until she actually fell, and he had to blink to save her from cracking her head on the ground when she was twelve. 

She stayed clear of the edges after that. At least until she could handle a fall. 

“Steep learning curve on this one,” Emily says instead as Jindosh opens the door and peers out into the hall. 

He hums in agreement. “I suppose then we should make sure the shock doesn’t kill him.”

Jindosh strides down the hallway and Emily follows, timepiece open and ready to jump.

///

It clearly isn’t the first time Jindosh has been in Stilton’s mansion, as he confidently navigates the corridors that Emily would’ve had to take at a slower pace. They’re heading for the library on the second floor, as Jindosh informed her that’s where the evening’s festivities were to take place.

“We should probably avoid the Main Hall,” he says, “I imagine you don’t want to be seen in this part of the country while supposedly in another.”

“That is my preference.”

He nods. “I believe the bulk of the Duke’s guard is there,” Jindosh says as he opens the door to a darkened room and slips inside. Emily follows. 

“These all the Abele’s men?”

“Most, but not all. Aramis has a small contingent of his own. Mind the table here.”

Emily can only just see the offending piece of furniture in the low light filtering in from glass cut-outs above the doorways, and she side-steps on Jindosh’s warning. 

“Where is Stilton? The guards clearly don’t know.”

“He’s most likely in the back garden. He was in the lounge with me for a bit but left to ‘get some air.’ He avoids the Duke like I avoid Breanna.” Jindosh chuckles. “And yet, he invites the man over. Such dichotomy.”

“Because of the late Duke. They were together?”

Jindosh opens the far door and peeks into the corridor. He closes it and motions with his hand to keep quiet. Emily attempts to make use of her otherworldly sight, but her Mark only burns faintly and is useless. She makes a fist and silently chastises herself for becoming so reliant on The Outsider’s magic. 

The footsteps of the guards click against the polished floors as they pass by, and then fade slowly as they get further away. Jindosh opens the door again and checks for any other surprises, before motioning for them to continue.

They head down another short corridor to a set of slatted double doors and Emily can smell the faint odour of chemicals for a pool. Jindosh pushes inside. 

Light from the nearby hall slants in through the wood slats of the room’s walls, reminding her moonlight filtering in through a window’s shutters. The water makes their footsteps echo, and they both slow their pace to keep the noise to a minimum. 

“As to your previous question,” Jindosh whispers, “yes, they were lovers, though hardly together. The late Duke was married through most of their affair.”

“…Oh. That must’ve been hard.”

“Aramis has a great capacity for guilt. Luca takes full advantage.”

Emily is honestly torn between hating Abele for torturing Stilton like that and thinking that he probably deserved some measure of it. As a child, it would’ve been crushing to learn that your father wasn’t faithful to your mother, that the family you thought you had was built on a lie. Against her better judgement, she sympathizes. 

However, after a moment, Emily’s resolve hardens. “I still hate him. Terrible childhood secrets and all.”

“There’s very little to like about Luca,” Jindosh agrees and moves to open the pool room’s far door. “Except for perhaps his money and startling lack of good judgement when it comes to how he spends it.”

“Well, he does spend it on you.”

And instead of getting angry or offended by that comment, like she expects—like he probably would’ve in the future she’s from with all their baggage, Jindosh just gives her a crooked smile and says,

“Precisely.”

Emily smiles ever so slightly in return and shakes her head. “Don’t expect a similar level of judgement when it comes to _my_ coffers.”

Jindosh peers out the door, but before he can retort, he clicks it quietly closed. “A guard is coming this way.”

Emily holds up her timepiece and Jindosh peers over her shoulder. In the glass, they see a dark and ruined room reflected, but no signs of any dangers. 

“Go,” he tells her.

She shifts through time just as the guard enters the room. This version of the pool room is eerie and smells of damp. The pool is mostly empty, but algae grow in what little water is left. The slates on the room's windows and doors are fallen out in random spots, and with no electric lights still functioning in the surrounding halls, the darkness is almost complete. 

Through the glass of the timepiece, Emily watches as Jindosh huffs and puffs over being interrupted. There’s a short conversation that she can’t hear, and Jindosh makes a face as gestures expansively with one hand.

The guard looks apologetic as he tries to calm Jindosh’s ire. Then the guard goes wide-eyed makes a plaintive motion to The Abby. Emily can’t help the snort of laughter at that. Desperately wondering what Jindosh might have said to provoke that reaction. 

Jindosh dismisses the guard with a flick of his hand, and the guard quickly walks past him and exits the pool room’s far door. 

Emily follows the man momentarily to make sure he isn’t doubling back before shifting back in time to Jindosh. He’s somewhat surprised to see her at the far end of the room, and she makes her way back to his side. This time when they exit, there are no guards to worry about. 

At least, until they get close to exit to the back gardens and they stop next to a corner to survey the path forward. 

“The door is just behind the Main Hall,” Jindosh tells her. 

“There are too many guards to slip by. I’ll check and see what the other side looks like.”

Emily steps through time, back into Stilton’s dilapidated mansion. She carefully heads down the hallway, following Jindosh’s direction toward the back-garden door. There’s a pair of swooping staircases that dominate the hall, with a domed glass ceiling and marble floors that must have shone when new. The door to the garden is behind the stairs, and as Emily slowly moves toward them, she hears a low growl and turns. 

Some 50 paces away a wolfhound has caught her scent and stares at her, teeth on display. 

Emily silently curses. They’re tough beasts to defeat at the best of time, and she’s without her magic now. If need be, she could kill the creature with a well-placed bolt, but in her experience, the hounds are rarely alone. Either with their human masters or other members of their pack. 

From around the front of the left staircase, another two wolfhounds come into view. Emily’s eyes flicker to her goal. She’s close, but will the door open for her before the hounds are on her; will the door hold them off while she searches for the right place to jump back to? If she still had The Outsider’s magic, she probably would’ve chanced it, but Emily has come too far to die this close to the end. 

Slowly, she starts backing up, not taking her eyes off the wolfhound. It watches her move with an intense gaze but stays still. Perhaps waiting for her to look away. The moment it’s out of sight, Emily checks the timepiece for a safe place to jump to, but there are guards in the hall she’s in, so she must retrace her steps all the way back to Jindosh. 

“There are wolfhounds all over the hall in my time,” she tells him lowly, and he starts slightly. “I could probably take one, or even two, but not in numbers greater than that without…” she trails off and holds up her wrapped hand. “It doesn’t work here, and I don’t know why. Something about the tear.”

Jindosh’s eyes flicker to her hand before returning to her face. He gives her a look somewhere between jealousy and keen interest.

“In any case, is it possible to get by the guards here? Do they have a pattern?” Emily continues, cutting off any further discussion about her Mark. This isn’t the time nor the place. She supposes she needn’t have told him, but it’s not like he wouldn’t have made the connection on his own.

“No. They’ve spent most of the night talking near the staircase.” He makes a face. “…I could serve as a distraction, but then I’d be unable to accompany you to deal with Aramis.”

“I’m just going to knock him out. You needn’t be there. Are there guards with him?”

“Likely two.”

“I can handle two guards.” Emily double checks her tranquillizer darts are loaded in her crossbow. “What did you have in mind?”

“Just the usual insufferably arrogant prickishness that I’m known for,” he replies with a dismissive wave. 

"Only the usual? That might not garner the reaction you want,” Emily says with a hint of a smirk.

Jindosh gives her a look, raising one eyebrow. “Are you volunteering to help set the mood?”

“We _have_ had some spectacular rows.”

He pretends to think it over. “Hmm…perhaps you could muss my appearance and _give_ me something to rant about.”

Emily gives him a long look, a spark of excitement unfurling in her stomach. Just how long had he considered this? Since she left to scout? Since the _lounge?_

Jindosh observes her reaction. 

With a quick and fierce movement, Emily grabs the edges of Jindosh’s waistcoat and slams him into the wall. He makes a _oof_ noise as he impacts. 

“Clothing only?” she asks conversationally, pinning him to the wall with the weight of her body against her hands and keeping her ears trained for any approaching footsteps. Though, if the bulk of the guards are content to slack off, it’s unlikely they’ll meet anyone for a moment or two longer. 

“It would be inappropriate to draw blood,” he replies and squirms against her hold. Emily leans into him to hold him still. 

“Agreed.”

Emily relaxes the grip of one hand to pull one shirttail out of Jindosh’s trousers. His breath catches slightly. 

“More?”

“I hardly look like I was accosted.”

She gives him a sly smile and uses her free hand to tilt his chin up before settling a light pressure against his neck. Then she moves the other hand to tug his intricate necktie free of its slip knots. With that done, Emily rakes her hand through Jindosh’s hair, mussing it, before grabbing a handful and pull his head to the side. 

His eyes drop closed momentarily as he shudders in her grasp. 

“I’m not sure I’d call this look ‘accosted,’” Emily says, watching the line of muscles in Jindosh’s neck. Then she releases him and steps back to admire her handy work. “I do so like the way you dress, Kirin. But I must admit—” she moves forward again, hands picking a few random buttons free on his vest, “—that I like the way you undress better.”

Jindosh swallows and watches her work with a hungry intensity that makes her insides flip. 

“Were we anywhere else, I would.” He leans forward from the wall and Emily’s hands curve around his sides. “But only if you promised to hold me down, and _fuck_ me.”

Her hands curl into his waistcoat, and Emily sucks in a shaky breath. _Void,_ she’d almost take the chance just to fuck him properly. He’d be so lovely and pliant under her hands, and he’d _want_ to be there. That alone spins her head more than anything they ever did before. 

It takes a great deal of strength to release him and step fully back. Outsider knows this is hardly the time or the place, even if she’s unsatisfied and itching to put her hands all over Jindosh.

He must read her mind because he follows her forward, moving away from the wall. “I want you to fuck me so hard and fast, neither of us can _breathe,_ ” he tells her, voice so low and drawn out, it’s almost a hiss. 

Emily nearly chokes on a sharp intake of air, before she surges forward, her body covering his. Jindosh meets her mouth with a satisfied noise, relaxing under her and hands moving to her back and ass to pull her closer. 

They frantically kiss, hardly breathing between motions, and with the desperate sort of edge and makes Emily ache. Void, she wants to be naked right now, and the thought of Jindosh’s hands on her again has her practically panting, but—

_But._

With the greatest of efforts, she pulls back, and as she does, Jindosh’s hands move from her body. He knows they can’t fuck here and lets her find her space. 

Which is a few feet away, gulping air like she has just run hard for a half a mile. He does the same.

They stare at one another at the seconds' tick by. 

Jindosh presses his lips together before speaking, voice rough and sinful. “How do I look now?”

Emily rakes her eyes down his body and back up again. “Even better under me, but I suppose this’ll have to suffice.”

“Pity, I have to wait three years for a proper showing.”

“At least that long,” Emily agrees, licking the taste of him off her lips. His eyes watch her movement before darting back up. 

“No point in lingering then.” Jindosh straightens and cracks his neck, before getting back to the task at hand. “Aramis is a fool, but I do, unfortunately, like him, so please don’t harm him more than necessary.”

“I won’t.”

He nods and then strides off down the hall. 

It doesn’t take long for Jindosh’s theatrics to distract the guards and pull them from their posts. 

Emily finds it much easier to tolerate his drama when it’s not directed at her. In fact, it’s rather entertaining, and if she didn’t have a pressing purpose, she might have just hung back in the shadows to watch it unfold. 

She waits for a beat of silence between Jindosh’s manufactured rage and the stumbling answers of the guards, before opening the garden door and slipping outside, so any potential guards aren’t alerted to her arrival. She clicks it softly closed behind her and pauses while her eyes adjust to the dark. 

Scanning the courtyard, Emily immediately spots one guard overlooking a small embankment. She pulls her crossbow back out and shoots him in the meaty part of his back. There’s a noise of quiet surprise, but any alarm the man might have felt is quickly doused by the auto-inject of the dart and the rapid spread of the muscle paralysis that is the initial effect of the drug. Unconsciousness comes a few moments after. Usually, once they’ve crumpled to the ground.

Emily moves forward, a new bolt rolling into place where the last one left, looking for the second guard that Jindosh indicated might also be with Stilton. She spots a woman off to the right of a small gazebo, where Stilton is writing something in a journal. She first shoots the second guard, and the noise of her falling causes Stilton to look up, Emily then shoots him in the arm. 

As he starts to slump forward, looking like he might fall off the small bench in the gazebo and possibly hit his head on the matching bench across from him, Emily hops down from the stone embankment and rushes to catch him. It would hardly serve her purpose here if he hit his head and died from hemorrhaging of some sort, and she did agree to keep the damage to Stilton’s person minimal. 

He lands awkwardly in her grasp, and Emily heaves him back on to the bench, straining under his bulk. Void, the man is nearly all muscle and Emily grunts with the effort of righting him. 

When he’s safely back on the bench, Emily retrieves her spent darts and heads back to the doors of the garden.

///

It takes some finagling to get upstairs unseen. 

Jindosh has positioned himself so that the guards’ backs are to the staircase, but it is still highly visible, and if anyone of them looked away, that would have been it for her. The whole thing makes her dearly miss her powers, and her hand flexes in impotence. When she makes it to the door of the library, Emily finds it locked and barely contains a noise of annoyance. 

Using the timepiece, she checks the surrounding area for more hounds or troubles as of yet unseen, before shifting forward in time. Almost immediately, she picks up on the click of the hounds’ claws on the floor below, hand reflexively checking for her father’s blade hanging at her hip. After silently listening for a few heartbeats to make sure they aren’t aware of her presence, she turns back to the library door. 

It’s been boarded and barricaded in the intervening years, and Emily frowns. It would take time to get through this, and while she may have it, she doesn’t have the tools, and the noise of the destruction of the barricade would bring the hounds down on her. No. She’ll have to wait for Jindosh to open the door for her. 

Unfolding the glass fan, Emily creeps toward the edge of the railing to watch Jindosh, keeping one eye on the hounds milling around. 

He’s gesturing wildly with his hands, agitated and exaggerated, though his words are quite literally, lost to time. Knowing it’s an act, Emily can see the showmanship in the display, and she almost feels sorry for the guards. Their expressions are range from surprise to fear—probably over their jobs. 

Eventually, it comes to an end, with most of the guards scattering to various parts of the house, possibly looking for whatever story Jindosh put together, and he storms up the stairs, still gesturing and speaking as he climbs. Though his audience is gone now, they can probably still hear his voice echoing down the halls.

Emily, rechecks the surrounding area, making sure she won’t be spotted by any guard that might have chosen to stay close to the staircase or on the upper level, before moving back from the railing and shifting back through time. Jindosh starts slightly at her abrupt appearance. 

“The door’s locked,” Emily says by way of greeting. 

Jindosh rolls his eyes. “Of course, it is. I would call Breanna a paranoid fanatic, but you’re here, so I suppose she isn’t.”

“Paranoid, at least.”

Jindosh snorts a breath of laughter and raps on the door before shaking the handle. “Are you serious with this, Brenna?” he calls through the dense wood and shoots Emily a faintly mischievous look. 

He’s so open with her it’s unbalancing; she had gotten used to fighting tooth and nail with him about everything. 

“All night, you have the guards harass me to join you, and you don’t bother to leave the bloody door unlocked? It’s not as if we’re doing ritual magic and summoning the Void or any—”

Abruptly the door opens, and Emily doesn’t have the time to bring the timepiece up to shift back to the present. She expects a barrage of magic to hit her, and she tenses, one hand moving to her father’s sword. As the door swings wide, she’s hit with a sensation of cold. Like a bucket of water has just been dumped on her head.

The lights in the hall flicker and dim. 

In the doorway to the library, Breanna Ashworth stands, one hand on her hip and the other holding the door. Though her expression is one of annoyance, she looks right past Emily. 

“Telegraph it around a little louder, Kirin. I don’t think Dunwall heard you.”

Jindosh smirks. “Perhaps they did. In any case, are you going to let me in, or shall I wait out in the garden with Aramis?”

“He’s decided to op-out, has he? Hmm, well, I expected as much. Coward.”

Jindosh’s hand clenches ever so slightly at that insult, but the expression on his face doesn’t change. “We all fear something, Breanna,” he replies mildly. “I, myself, fear Luca’s parties after 2am. It’s when all the good wine is gone.”

“I keep a stash in my private rooms, Kirin,” Abele’s voice calls from behind Ashworth. “You need only ask.”

Jindosh's expression gets an exaggerated sort of alarm on it. He looks at Ashworth and says sotto, “Not for all the good wine in the world.” 

She smirks ever so faintly. 

“I’ll keep that in mind, for next time, Luca,” Jindosh says louder, and Ashworth finally steps back from the doorway, allowing Jindosh space to enter.

As she moves back, Ashworth’s form, flickers and fades, all colour draining from it and leaving only shades of grey. Jindosh does the same as he enters the room, and Emily is immediately on edge. She follows Jindosh inside, almost shivering from the sensation of cold. 

In the library, the Void is almost a presence unto itself, dark and heavy it calls to her from someplace close by. 

Emily watches as the figures of Ashworth, Jindosh, Abele, and Hypatia move through the motions of that night. They don’t see her. The Void must be shrouding this place from the real world, and as such, she has no effect on it, nor them on her (as tested by her attempting to put her hand on Jindosh’s shoulder; it passes right through). 

She can’t stop Delilah, but she can figure out what happened that night. 

When Delilah confronts her after she materializes from the Void, her soul transferred to the scarecrow Jindosh mentioned earlier and apparently safe in Abele’s hands, Emily is still reeling from it all. She stares slack-jawed at the woman and fighting the urge to check behind her to see if there was someone else Delilah was addressing. 

The rest of the cabal is looking at Delilah, the same as Emily. She imagines that her expression is much like the ones on theirs. Except for Jindosh. He stares at her, a harshly expectant look on his face. As if he too could see her and was waiting for her response. 

Emily pulls herself back together and faces Delilah with a scowl.

“This is the beginning of the end for you,” Emily snarls. 

Delilah laughs. “Oh, sweet child, how little you understand. This world is _mine._ ” She darts forward, disappearing and then reappearing right before Emily and clamps a hand around her neck. 

There are gasps of surprise all around the room. Somehow, Delilah has made her visible to them.

Emily struggles to breathe against the steel-like grip. 

“How convenient of you to deliver yourself to my waiting hands,” Delilah says. “The usurper finally dead. By my hands.”

Her grips tighten impossibly and Emily claws at her. 

Fear and anger battle inside her. It _can’t_ end here. Not with her father trapped. Not with her kingdom under siege. 

Emily grabs hold of Delilah’s wrist with her hands as her anger begins to win out over the fear. _Bitch,_ she thinks savagely as darkness starts to creep across her vision, and calls for the magic of the Outsider, forgetting that it doesn’t work here. 

All of a sudden, there’s agonized scream and the acrid smell of burning flesh. Delilah’s hand abruptly releases her neck as she backs away, and Emily slumps to the ground, coughing hard as air rushes back into her lungs. 

Abele and Ashworth rush to Delilah’s side, while the twisted version of Hypatia darts to where Delilah had been standing. Emily scrambles backward, uncertain if she’s still visible, but the Crown Killer only sniffs the air, like a wolfhound that’s lost the scent. Jindosh’s gaze moves between Hypatia and Delilah as he carefully watches the proceedings. He looks back at her, but not quite at her face, and she realizes that he can’t see her either, but he must sense her presence the same way Delilah had. 

Or, at the very least, expects her to still be there. 

One by one, the shadows of the past flicker out of existence, until it’s only Emily in the library. She sits on the floor for a time, gathering her wits, one hand tenderly on her neck. Then, she stands and moves out of the ritual’s circle. As she breaches its border, there’s a resistance, like the drag of water, around her. 

When she breaks through, she can feel a shift in the air and knows without a shadow of a doubt, she’s returned to the present.

///

To her utter surprise, Emily nearly runs right into Aramis Stilton outside the library door. Thankfully, he’s facing away from her, so she has a moment to collect herself before he turns around.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks a grave look on his face and no signs of any of his previous madness. Then his face furrows. “Were you wearing that outfit before?”

Emily barely resists the urge to look down at herself, as a rising sort of excitement fills her. _It worked._ Things are different! 

“Yes. Of course,” she replies briskly. “And, I’ve learned what I needed. Abele has it.”

Stilton nods face still furrowed. Then he dismisses the unspoken thought. “Shall we head back then?”

“To the _Wale?_ ” Emily questions as she begins to move toward the staircase, hand diving into her bag, looking for the timepiece. 

Stilton dips his square head in agreement and follows in her wake. Emily’s hands brush over the folded glass feathers, and she smiles. 

They return to the _Dreadful Wale,_ Stilton expertly maneuvering the skiff through the water while Emily fights to keep the savage grin of triumph off her face as the wind whips by. 

She shouldn’t be so excited about this turn of events, but the fact that she managed to change even this small thing has markedly improved her spirits. The task of ending Delilah’s rein doesn’t seem half as daunting any longer, like a light has suddenly appeared at the end of a very long tunnel. Not only that, but she now knows that Delilah can be _injured._ And if you can hurt something, you can kill it. 

She just needed to capture Delilah’s soul, and somehow return it to her body. The how of it escapes her presently, but she’ll think of something. Or perhaps Sokolov will have and idea or two. Or Jindosh. 

As they approach the _Wale,_ Stilton slows the skiff and runs them alongside the ship. Megan and Sokolov call down before they toss the hooks and Emily and Stilton secure the lines.

As they’re winched up to deck level, a nervousness suddenly grips Emily. She has no idea how different things are from the past she knows. Is Alexandria still alive? Is she herself? Anton is clearly here with Megan, but did Jindosh again torture him? Is Jindosh even here? Did her past self kill him instead of sparing him? And does that mean Ashworth is still alive?

These questions and more swirl in her head as the skiff hits the end of its line, and rocks gently suspended above the water. Stilton nimby jumps out of the craft, before offering to help her out. Emily accepts gratefully, feeling a little off-balance by the events of the last few hours. 

On the deck, Anton and Megan both give her odd looks as they notice her clothing. Megan doesn’t say anything, arms folding—Emily stares. _Arms._ She has them both! And her eye! Emily switches to Anton, and notes he looks younger and less haggard than when she last saw him. 

“Anton…” she says with some surprise but stops herself from speaking any further. If she were to tell him what happened, it was likely best not to mention it in front of Stilton or Megan. 

“Have time to stop a tailor, Your Majesty?” comes Jindosh’s amused tone from behind Megan. Relief floods her. 

She spots him leaning against the deckhouse, smoking. Emily raises one eyebrow.

“Don’t you remember? I was wearing this last we saw each other.” Her tone is faintly annoyed, but as she heads down to the War Room, Emily shoots him a secret smirk.

///

With the edited version of the events at Bastia District described, Stilton mentions an upcoming party at Abele’s palace the night after next. It is her best opportunity to go through the Duke’s house and find the scarecrow that Delilah stored her soul in. She thanks him for everything he’s done. 

“Of course, Ma’am,” Stilton says warmly and then frowns ever so slightly. “I feel partly responsible for not keeping a better watch over Luca.”

“You’re hardly responsible for that egomaniacal twat,” Jindosh scoffs.

“I hate to agree with _this_ egomaniacal twat,” Megan adds, tilting her head at Jindosh, “but he’s right. You aren’t responsible for him, Aramis.”

Stilton nods, looking unconvinced and then sighs. “In any case, I’d better get back to Bastia. Megan, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Megan nods and slides off the table.

“If you need anything else, Ma’am, don’t hesitate to call on me,” Stilton says to Emily, and then looks at Jindosh. “Are you staying aboard, Kirin?”

“For now,” Jindosh agrees, supremely unconcerned. “I’ll call on you later in the week.”

“Provided Luca hasn’t banged us all up for treason, hmm?” Stilton replies with a small smirk. “Very good, I’ll see you then.”

When they’ve left the room, Emily immediately looks at Jindosh. She’s bursting at the seams to find out what’s happened in this new timeline. Then she feels Sokolov’s eyes on them. 

“I’ll deal with the winch,” he says after a moment, a faint sort of amusement in his gruff voice. “But when I get back, I want the real version of events.”

Emily nods distractedly, and Sokolov leaves them alone. 

There are a few moments of tense silence before Emily burst out with,

“It worked!”

And Jindosh says eagerly at the exact same time,

“Do you have it?”

Emily fishes the timepiece out of her bag and holds it up, a triumphant look on her face. Jindosh reaches for it, but she pulls it back ever so slightly. 

“Is Ashworth dead?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Jindosh gives her a smug look. “It’s not easy to build a machine into a death trap without the other half of your project knowing, but Breanna was greedy and wanted more focusing power for the magic. When all that power is focused elsewhere? Well…” He shrugs nonchalantly, even though he's fighting a smirk.

Emily hands over the timepiece, entirely unable to temper her answering grin. “Good. One less headache to worry about.”

“The other you wasn’t quite so glad of Breanna’s death,” Jindosh notes, shooting her a grin nearly as wide as her own, before turning his attention to the timepiece. It appears to be lifeless, the glass feathers acting as a mirror rather than a window. 

“That’s because she got to live in peaceful ignorance at how much trouble a living Ashworth stirred up for her,” Emily replies, pulling her scarf free of her neck and unwrapping her Marked hand. “I’m parched,” she mutters and looks around for a carafe of water while she tosses her coat over the nearest chair.

“It’s odd,” Jindosh says as he sets the timepiece down, the glass feathers tinkling together, “to see you so clearly having left our previous meeting, and yet knowing its been three years.”

Emily raises an eyebrow, curious. “What makes you so certain?”

“Your clothes are different, but it’s actually a bruise about your neck that really seals it.”

Her hand goes to her throat, unconsciously.

“Your little trick burnt the flesh right off her wrist. Its naught but bone,” he continues idly, reaching for the carafe of water she failed to notice was just next to them. “And it won’t heal.”

“Hmm. That’s strange, but…could be useful.”

Jindosh flashes her a smirk and hands her glass of water. “You can have the tidbit on the house.”

“For old times sake?” she says, arching a brow and accepting the glass, and downs the contents greedily.

He gives her heated once over before settling back against the table. “For a promised continuation. It’s been a trying time dealing with your other half, knowing what lurked under the surface. She hardly gave me the time of day, and when I did get her attention, it was all harsh words and cutting remarks. And not the good kind,” he laments.

“Neither did I until I there was nowhere else to look. I said we had some spectacular rows, remember?”

“I had wondered if that was hyperbole. Then I discovered it wasn’t.”

Emily chuckles lowly and sets her glass down. She moves toward Jindosh, desire blossoming in her again. He watches her with keen interest. Three years had passed, and he still wanted her. It was very flattering, and precisely the sort of control she craved. Nimbly, she hops on the table beside him. With a hand on the collar of his coat, she pulls him around to stand between her legs. 

“You’ll undress properly for me, this time,” she tells him and slips two fingers in the gaps between the buttons on his coat. Jindosh’s breathing picks up, and he sets his hands on her hips, leaning in. 

She tilts her face up, meaning to capture him in a kiss, but the sound of Sokolov clearing his voice from the doorway to the hall, has her pulling abruptly back. Jindosh’s hands tighten on her as he scowls and turns his head. 

“I thought something was different,” Anton says, a smirk curling his lips. “And not just your outfit, my dear.”

Colour stains her cheeks, but Emily does not turn away. Sokolov already once said he wouldn’t judge her choice in partners, and she doesn’t doubt for a moment that isn’t still true. However, saying she fucked Jindosh and being caught wanting to are two vastly different things. 

“I would let you carry on, but I’m old, and while you may last all night, I won’t,” he continues, entering the War Room properly. “First, we must talk about what happened in Batista. Then you may manhandle Kirin all you wish.” His eyes twinkle with amusement.

Jindosh makes a noise of annoyance but doesn’t correct Sokolov. He looks at Emily, one eyebrow arching in question, frown firmly fixed. Unbidden, her free hand smooths the lines between the brows and a look of surprise flashes briefly in his eyes before she nods once, and he steps back. 

Emily crosses her legs and gestures for Sokolov to take a seat. Jindosh moves to the far end of the room, pulling a tin of tobacco from his coat. 

“The simple version is this:” Emily starts once Sokolov is settled, “The things that happened here, are not the things I lived through. Not entirely. In Stilton’s mansion, the Outsider gave me an object he called a timepiece and bid me use it to discover how Delilah returned from the dead. In short, she punched a hole between our world and Void.”

Sokolov’s face draws together in concern.

“That hole left a path between the present I came from and the past that created it; the timepiece allowed travel between them. In that past, I spoke with this version of Jindosh,” she gestures to where he’s smoking, “and we changed the future.”

Sokolov considers her words for a moment before folding his hands across his stomach. 

“I think you’d better give me the complicated version, my dear.”

///

It takes a further two hours to explain the complicated version of the past that Emily had lived through and how it was different from this one. Jindosh moves closer as she talks, slouching in a chair near where Emily had consolidated her legs under her. 

From the ensuing conversation, it’s clear that this timeline happened similarly to her own, but there were a few key differences in both. 

Sokolov tells her that the destruction of Dunwall Tower wasn’t as bad as it had been in her time. The other Emily had spoken about how the clockwork soldiers let civilians escape and only went after those obviously armed. Upon hearing that, Emily gives Jindosh a nod of thanks. 

She hadn’t even thought to mention that the last time they met, so she appreciates his forethought. Even if it was only to keep their deal alive and not because he cared about the casualties. 

Then she learns that the destruction of the Oraculum literally rendered Ashworth and her witches to ash with force of its magical focus. Oh, what Emily would give to have seen that. She gives Jindosh an approving smile.

From there, it leads them into discussing how Jindosh had presented himself on the _Dreadful Wale_ the day after she arrived in Karnaca with Sokolov in tow. He explained who and what the Crown Killer was, and that if that other Emily wanted to weaken Delilah’s position, that was the best place to start. 

“He kept me in his home against my will, but certainly not in the manner you say I had been kept in your timeline, my dear,” Anton tells her. “I was not allowed to leave, but I was not tortured or confined to a single room.”

“Everything about your stay was exceedingly tedious,” Jindosh says, shooting Emily an annoyed look, like it was personally her fault that he didn’t get to torture Sokolov. It way, she supposes it was. “Honestly, the other me had the better idea,” 

“As usual, Kirin, you look to others for your own ideas. I suppose in this instance you’re only saving grace is that it is yourself you look to.”

“It’s hardly my fault an industrial empire could be built on improving your garbage.”

“Oh yes, because the world needs better ways to kill.”

Jindosh rolls his eyes. “You’re a fucking hypocrite.”

“Privilege of the old.”

As Jindosh draws breath to retort, Emily pinches the bridge of her nose in annoyance. She’s had enough of their childish bickering. In both timelines. 

“Enough,” she says sharply. “I tire of this. Anton, you _are_ a hypocrite, but worse, you’re a critic who never has a kind thing to say. Would it have killed you give Jindosh the praise he deserves?

“And Kirin, you have nothing to prove to Anton because you _are_ the better inventor and creator. He won’t ever say that to your face, so just accept that you will never get validation from him.”

Jindosh looks at her with an oddly surprised expression that makes her wonder if anyone has ever praised his effort or creations or sheer genius before. Then, Sokolov grumbles something about how one shouldn’t need the praise of others to find worth or value (and though she privately agrees, it’s more that Sokolov’s pride won’t let him be seen as second best) and Jindosh’s expression goes flat. 

“Shut up,” she snaps at Sokolov, feeling a fierceness spring up in her. Sokolov’s eyebrows raise. 

Emily hops off the table then, grabbing the timepiece and shoving it into her bag, and gives Jindosh a pointed look before striding out of the war room and down the hall. She thinks she might hear Sokolov say something to Jindosh as the door closes behind her, but his voice is too low for her to understand. 

She swears to the Outsider if they start fighting again, she will lock her door and fuck herself. However, Jindosh catches up to her outside her room. 

There’s an intense look on his face the moment before he crushes her in an urgent kiss. Surprised, she allows it before getting a handle on herself and taking control. Jindosh cedes quickly to her, and somehow between kissing him, she manages to get the door open, and they tumble into her room, bag dropping with a metal clang somewhere between her desk and the door.

At the cot, she pushes him back from her, taking a seat on the desktop, shoving her journal out of the way. (She’ll have to read that later, but for now, there are more exciting things to occupy her time.) 

“Strip.”

He obeys, but it's not with the same sort of thankful release that he did when truly under her command. It’s much better than that. It’s him willfully putting himself under her control, and she can’t get enough of it. 

He starts with his boots, sitting on the cot to unlace and step out of them. Then he stands again unbuttons his coat next, folding and setting every piece of garment on top of her closed trunk. Emily holds out her hand for the pocket watch and turns it over in her hands once again before setting it on the desk beside her. 

It’s truly a beautiful piece. After a moment of consideration and with some curiosity, Emily says just that. Jindosh’s hands pause briefly on the hooks of his trousers as he gives her an odd look. 

“I admired it before as well, though I don’t think I ever said so.” She picks it back up. “You called it a priceless original; I agree.”

When she looks back at Jindosh, he looks faintly embarrassed, and Emily is surprised. He was so boastful about the watch before. Yet now that she agrees with him, he’s found a modicum of modesty?

She slips off the desk, peering closely at him. This is something she never would’ve gotten to see in her own timeline. Not the way they were at each other’s throats. 

“I mean it,” she tells him, watch in hand. “I think this is beautiful.”

“Stop that,” he says and takes it from her. “It’s just a trinket. A worthless gift from an even more worthless man.”

“At first, but not now.” Emily puts her hands on his chest and smooths over the expense of his shoulders, wanting to see how far she can push this. “You create beautiful and elegant things, Kirin. Even when they are meant to destroy, they’re works of art. I spent over a month in your clockwork mansion, and I am still endlessly fascinated by it.”

The flush of embarrassment trails down his neck and into the top of his chest. His breathing has picked up, and he’s looking anywhere but her face. 

“I greatly enjoy your musical compositions as well. They remind me of the Void, but in a way that takes the fear out of visiting it.” Emily moves her hands to the fasteners on his trousers and starts plucking them apart. Jindosh chokes on a sharp intake of air. “The Outsider told me about a creation of yours that drank seawater and brought people to tears with its music; I wish it were still around to admire.”

“Stop,” he gasps weakly. “Stop…”

“What? Can’t take a little praise? Genuine admiration?” Emily shoves his trousers and pants down his narrow hips and notes his cock is starting to fill out. “Do you suppose I agreed to give you the position of Royal Inventor because I only cared about using your knowledge to get rid of Delilah? I could’ve come up with some other carrot if I didn’t think your talent warranted such a position.”

Emily puts a hand on his chin and forces him to look at her. His pupils are blown wide and dark.

“You are wasted on the Duke, and I vow to not let you be wasted on me.”

The intensity that she saw on his face before is back, and his hands suddenly fist the fabric of her coat as he pulls her close for another urgent kiss. It’s an interesting reaction, and one she files away for future use. How had he gone all this time starved for praise when he seemed to get it everywhere he went? Or had his expulsion from the Academy meant he was always on the outside looking in? 

It was food for thought anyway. And most certainly for another time. 

Emily breaks the kiss, and Jindosh tells her with that low voice that makes her insides squirm,

“ _Fuck me._ ”

Oh, Void, _yes._ Emily tells Jindosh to lie on the cot, and she starts pulling off her clothes. Not being half as neat and careful with them as Jindosh has been with his. When she’s finally bare, Emily positions herself over Jindosh, knees either side of his shoulders and cunt over his face. Jindosh’s hands move over the sides of her thighs and up to her hips, waiting. 

“You said once you’d make me scream,” Emily pants out, and Jindosh’s hands curl into her skin. “Prove it.”

He moves her slightly into a better position, and Emily leans forward, bracing herself on the crate that’s been shoved up against the head of the cot. Good thing she does too because the first, hot swipe of his tongue against her makes Emily’s thighs tremble worryingly. It doesn’t take long before she’s moaning into the crook of her arm, barely keeping herself upright. Jindosh’s mouth finds all the spots that make her shake and gasp, one hand leaving her hip to press a pair of fingers into her and curling to press firmly forward, and Emily has to put a hand over her mouth as that makes her cry out. 

The smug curl of Jindosh’s mouth against her nearly does her in, but she holds on for a moment longer until he puts the flat of his tongue back on her clit and laves it with attention. There’s a sobbing litany of _Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,_ in her head just as she goes taunt and lets out a shaking noise that might have been Jindosh’s name. 

He works her through her orgasm, easing slowly on his administrations until Emily starts breathing again. When he pulls his fingers from her with a slick squelch, Emily groans and sits back slightly, trying to make her brain work enough to move her legs so she can shift into another spot. 

There’s little space on the cot for two people, but eventually, Emily falls off to the side and leans against the cooling bulwark of the ship. Jindosh watches her, one hand lightly resting on her calf, thumb stroking her skin. In the low light of the room, his face glistens with her slick before he absentmindedly wipes it off. 

Emily leans forward and grabs his hand, stopping him, then she licks her way into his mouth, tasting the sharp tang of herself there. He pants into her mouth, eager and needy. She breaks away and moves to the line of his throat. Then down his chest, licking and nipping at anything that catches her fancy. 

Now that her own need has been satisfied, she’s much more interested in slowly picking Jindosh apart. When she mouths over his nipples, Jindosh arches and scrabbles against the bed. When she nips at the hard edges of his hips, he babbles broken pleas and cutting swears. When she kisses the soft skin of his inner thigh, Jindosh makes a noise so needful that Emily’s cunt clenches in anticipation. She likes the sound of it so much, she does it again and again and _again,_ until he’s hoarse and begging for her to fuck him. 

Emily moves back up to kiss him, making little hushing noises between each drag of their lips. Then, she straddles his thighs, carefully finding the right spot. She does this so rarely, that it’s a little nerve-wracking for her, but also full of so much heady want that she can hardly wait for it. Before she does anything, though, she must have Jindosh’s full attention. 

Emily places her hands on Jindosh’s arms, and curls her fingers in, nails biting as she says slowly and clearly, “Kirin, look at me.”

His dazed gaze lands on her, eyes wet from the overload of sensation. 

“You aren’t to come in me, do you understand?”

He nods eagerly, and Emily digs her nails sharply into his arms. He winces but says with a wrecked voice, “I understand.”

“When you’re close, tell me to stop, and I will.”

“I will,” he echoes. 

She stares at him for a moment, wondering if this is a good idea after all until Jindosh shifts his arms so he can touch her as well. 

“Please,” he begs, apparently reading her thoughts. “I can keep control of myself. I’ll be good.”

Emily smiles a little harshly and leans over him. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

Jindosh groans and nods. She sits back up, releasing his arms and takes hold of his cock in one hand. He shudders in her grip, eyes falling closed. 

“No,” she tells him. “Watch,” and he opens his eyes again, looking first at her face, then down to where she has a hold of his cock. 

Emily then guides it into herself, slowly sinking down as she gets used to the size and sensation. Jindosh’s hands scrabble ineffectively at her hips until she’s fully seated, and then she takes his hands by the wrists and pins them back against the bedspread near his head. Emily takes a moment to get used to the feeling of his cock, a mix of emotions swirling in an eddy in her head. 

Then, with supreme deliberateness, Emily begins to roll her hips, grinding her clit on the jut of Jindosh’s pelvis and watching Jindosh watch her. A few babbling curses slip out of his mouth, and eventually, he can’t take the sight anymore, eyes closing as he focuses on the sensation of it all. 

Emily noses along the line of his throat. Kissing the underside of his jaw, before the hollow of his throat. The noises of desperation he makes reverberating along her skin. She moves up to pulls him into a kiss, and Jindosh’s mouth falls open under hers, eager and slick. 

Her hips stay slow, looking more for her own second release than his and Jindosh impatiently flexes his hands. 

“Faster. _Harder,_ ” he pants. 

“Why? You’re plenty breathless,” she replies, thighs tightening around him, so he doesn’t get any ideas. 

Jindosh nods jerkily, but still says, “Emily, _please._ ”

How can she say no when he’s asked so nicely? 

She gives a single hard, thrust of her hips and Jindosh moans. Then, she finds a fast and hard pace that suits his need and proceeds to punish him with it. Jindosh throws his head back, hands clench into fists as she rides him within an inch of his life.

At one point, his own hips start trying to trust with hers, but Emily retightens her thighs around him and growls a single, “ _No,_ ” and that puts a stop to that. She’s the one with the control, and she’s the only one. Jindosh is only here to take what he is given and be grateful for it.

The way he alternately squirms and goes taunt, along with the desperate way he says her name in between curses and breathless moans, suggests he’s very grateful indeed. 

Then, after what seems like too long and too short a time a once, Jindosh’s hands scrabble at the air, and he pants out frantically, “Stop. _Stop._ Stop. I can’t—” he cuts himself off with a shake of his head and Emily immediately stops the roll of her hips. 

They both are still, chests heaving with the need for air. 

Emily waits a few moments while Jindosh gets a handle on himself before lifting herself up and off of his cock. He shudders underneath her even as she settles herself back down just behind his slick and leaking cock. Her cunt spasms and aches at the loss, but she much prefers to not be pregnant to any momentary high an orgasm will bring.

She takes her hands off his wrists and drags her nails up Jindosh’s stomach and chest, fingers stiff from being in one position for too long. He squirms under her, until his hands halt hers on his chest, holding on her forearms for grounding. 

“Finish yourself,” Emily tells him, “then finish me.”

Jindosh moans lowly as he takes himself in hand, plenty slick from Emily, and strokes hard and fast. Emily rubs tight circles around his nipples and tells him how lovely he looks for her, good he was for her, how well he listened. Each bit of praise has him writhing under her until he goes so tight and still that Emily wonders if he’s even still breathing. She rakes her nails down his chest and into the hollow of his stomach, and Jindosh gasps at the sensation, arching off the cot as he comes. 

It’s a glorious sight she tucks away for later. 

She waits for him to float back down, hands stroking along his sides and up to his arms as he twitches and shudders. When he grabs a wrist to stop her movements, Emily moves to the side of the bed. It takes them a moment to shuffle, but eventually, they end up lying side by side and Emily hooks a leg around his hip. 

Jindosh buries his face in the side of her neck as he draws two fingers long her swollen slit before pushing them inside her wet cunt. He groans into the side of her neck, curling his fingers forward and pressing just _so,_ before sliding out and circling her clit. 

Emily winds a hand into his hair, arching her back and grinding down on his hand. Jindosh’s face moves lower; he takes one pebbled nipple into his mouth, tongue licking broad strokes over it. Emily gasps and twitches, holding Jindosh’s head against her small breast. Her muscled leg locks around his hip, and his fingers circle faster and faster at each wordless noise of encouragement. 

When she feels like she’s about to break apart, Emily pulls his head back up to hers and kisses him. It’s clumsy and frantic, but somehow his sated steadiness slows her enough that she can relax and let the sparking sensations flow over her. 

On an exhale that’s nearly a sigh, she climaxes.

Her second orgasm isn’t as achingly intense as the first, but it's better. She always likes the second one better, easier to feel all the lovely sensations when it isn’t so overwhelming. 

Emily murmurs his name, and Jindosh kisses the taste of it out of her mouth.

///

The afternoon of Abele’s party, Jindosh takes his leave of the _Dreadful Wale._

It seems odd to Emily that he’s going to be gone, given that she’s spent the last several months in his presence. However, now that they’ve established that the right Emily made it back to this timeline to fulfill the beginning of their agreement, there really isn’t any reason for Jindosh to hang around. He needs to deal with wrapping up his own business in Karnaca before he can head to Dunwall, and that can’t be done until Emily defeats Delilah. 

Their time together feels like the beginning and the end of something, and she fucks him within an inch of his life in all the time they have left. Upon her return to Dunwall Tower, she must deal with the consequences of her actions and those of Delilah. She suspects that the Isles will never be the same after this, and frankly, dealing with him and Wyman is so far down her list of priorities, it's laughable. 

Of course, she’ll see about getting him is position at the Academy as soon as possible, but Emily can’t quite bring herself to think beyond that. Whatever she and Jindosh have created here mustn't rival what she and Wyman already have, and she certainly doesn’t love Jindosh. Nor he, her. So, it is best to just leave this whole thing in Karnaca and be done with it. 

Even if all she wants to do is touch Jindosh and pull him apart under her fingers. Aches with the desire of it. This is just an infatuation that will leave her when she leaves this Void-damned city behind. When everything is back to normal (or the new normal that doesn’t involve her shirking her duties), she will be too. 

“You’ll never be rid of him now,” Sokolov warns her as they watch Jindosh’s skiff motor away from the boat. “All he’s ever wanted was equal to appreciate his skills and talents.”

Perhaps she should be worried about that assessment, but Emily finds it thrills her instead. 

“I’m flattered,” is all she says and heads back down to her room to get some much-needed rest before her final excursion in Karnaca.

///

12th Day of the Month of Darkness, 1852

  


Kirin Jindosh, Jindosh Clockworks  
Grand Inventor, Serkonos  
Clockwork Mansion, Upper Aventa, Karnaca

  


Kirin,

Delilah is dead.

Dunwall is a wreck, but I’ve managed to secure a position for you at the Academy. They were eager to bargain after the torment she visited upon the city.

Join me as soon as you can. There is much work to do.

  


Emily Kaldwin I  
Empress of the Isles  
Dunwall Tower, Tower District, Dunwall


End file.
